Canada visa lure: Couple dupes duo of ₹22L, booked

Ludhiana: A couple from Amritsar lost Rs 22 lakh to two fraudsters of Ludhiana, who allegedly duped them on the pretext of getting them a Canada visa. The FIR has been lodged after a two-year-long inquiry.The accused fraudsters are travel agents — Neeraj Kumar and his wife Parveen Kaur — of Mundian Kalan, who also owned a travel agency in Koom Kalan.The complainant, Dhyan Singh, of Kaler Mangat in Amritsar said that he got in touch with the Ludhiana based travel agent couple through a reference, as he wanted to go abroad with his wife Jagroop Kaur. They met the accused in 2019, and they had then sought Rs 30 lakh from them to send them to Canada.He said he paid Rs 7 lakh in cash in their office on November 26, 2019, and another Rs 15 lakh was given in instalments through the bank. After getting the money, the accused gave them Delhi-Canada air tickets, however, he later cancelled the tickets. The accused repeated this thrice. Thereafter, Neeraj called the complainant saying that he and his wife were in Delhi, and asked the complainant and his wife to come to Delhi to further board a flight to Canada.The couple took a flight from Amritsar to Delhi, but upon reaching there, still didn’t get any tickets for Canada. They kept waiting for 15 days in Delhi, and at last returned to Amritsar. The victims then asked for their money and the accused returned about Rs 8 lakh, and refused to return the remaining amount after which the victims lodged a complaint with the police on June 29, 2021. An inquiry was then marked to the anti-human trafficking wing.Investigating officer, assistant sub-inspector (ASI) Dharampal Chaudhary said that an FIR under sections 420 (punishment for cheating) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and the Immigration Act has been lodged against the accused. The police will arrest the accused soon.