No red alert for Telgi at international airports

MUMBAI: In case Abdul Karim Telgi manages to jump jail in Bangalore and reach the airport, the immigration check posts at our international airports won’t stop him. Simply because they haven’t been asked to.
The Look Out Cell or LOC at international airports is part of the immigration police and is meant to keep a watch on undesirable elements slipping into or out of the country.
But, as the team investigating the stamp-paper scam discovered to its alarm last week, Telgi won’t have a problem fleeing the country if hemanages tomake it to the airport.
The Mumbai police has not alerted the LOC about Telgi although he has a criminal record dating back to 1995. Unless the courts specifically prohibit Telgi from travelling and send instructions to that effect to the immigration department, the scamster can check in and out of airports like anybody else.
As a matter of routine, investigating officers inform the local deputy police commissioner in charge of immigration about offenders wanted or arrested in a serious criminal case. Other states add their names via the union ministry of home affairs. The national list today runs into over 1,10,000 names.
“Even if an offender is in jail, the police informs us as a precautionary measure since there are chances that he or she may escape jail or jump bail," said a source. Telgi is not the only one who is missing from the LOC’s roster of infamy.
Prasoon Agarwal, arrested recently after fake stamps and currency notes were found in properties belonging to him, is one more name that has not beeped on the LOC radar.When he was absconding in 1998, Agarwal managed to breeze past immigration check posts at least six times, sources said.
The LOC list includes gangsters, absconders, economic offenders, criminals required by the courts and investigative agencies and international absconders against whom Interpol has issued red corner notices. Their names and particulars are fed into a database for prompt recall.
Each time a passenger takes an international flight, the immigration officials scans the database for his or her name. “The exercise takes about five seconds per passenger,’’ said an official.
There have been times though when a person on the list has managed to slip through, sometimes because of a spelling error in the name. The innocent also suffer.
In one case, the son of a retired chief justice of a high court was intercepted when his name showed up on the LOC list because of a hyphenation error.
Stolen or lost passports can also land passengers on the LOC’s list. A trustee of a well-known city college has to inform immigration officers in advance each time he flies abroad because his original passport was stolen and misused. Since it hasn’t been traced, his name continues to figure on the LOC list.