22 minors taken to France go missing, FIR registered: CBI

The CBI has registered an FIR after 22 minors from Punjab, Haryana and Delhi were illegally taken to France by three travel agents last year in the garb of giving them rugby coaching and went missing, agency officials said here today.

The agency today carried out searches at the premises of the travel agents -- Faridabad-based Lalit David Dean and Delhi-based Sanjeev Roy and Varun Choudhary -- from where documents were seized, they said.

The officials alleged that the agents had charged Rs 25- 30 lakh from the parents of each of the minors for sending them abroad.

In their visa application, the agents had shown that the 25 children in the age group of 13-18 years were going to attend a rugby training camp in Paris, they said.

"A group of 25 students shown as students of two Kapurthala (Punjab)-based schools led by private persons (travel agents) embarked at Delhi airport for Paris to participate in a rugby training camp on the basis of alleged invitation received from the French Federation, Paris," CBI Spokesperson Abhishek Dayal said.

He said all of them visited Paris and, thereafter, the said 25 students also attended a rugby training camp there for about a week.

Dayal said in between, the travel agents cancelled their return tickets but before that two children, anticipating something wrong, returned to India.

The minors, who were left behind, were allegedly dumped in a local gurudwara and went missing, CBI officials said.

One of them was arrested by the French police which referred the matter to the Interpol, they said, adding the Interpol intimated the CBI.

After getting the information, the agency conducted a preliminary enquiry and registered an FIR, they said.

The officials said the CBI will soon contact the parents and also collect information if any missing person complaint was registered.