The immigration authorities in Georgia have deported five Nepali youths who had reached there via Indira Gandhi Airport, New Delhi.  

 

The youths, who were trying to enter the Caucasian country on tourist visas last week, were denied entry  after reportedly not being received by anybody at the airport. They are now being detained at the Department of Immigration (DoI) here for further investigations. 

 

Sunil Gurung, Rakesh Sarki, Dil Bahadur Sarki, Asin Bhattarai and Amrit Kumar Kandel were taken to Georgia by an agent with a promise of jobs and residency papers. They are found to have paid Rs. 1.2 million each to the agent in the hope of getting into Europe and then making their way to the United States of America.  

 

 Bhattarai informed that all of them paid at least Rs. 1.2 million each to Bishnu Ghahat Raj, the agent, who arranged all the documents for getting the visas. “The agent made out the insurance papers and two way tickets for us to enter Georgia. We were truly convinced we would see good earnings once we enter that country and later went on to the US,” he said. 

 

Bhattarai  further divulged that they were first refused passage through Tribhuwan International Airport (TIA) and later traveled to Georgia via Delhi.

 

“We had valid visas but the immigration officials didn't permit us to enter Georgia as nobody came to pick us up at the airport even hours after we reached there,” he informed, adding, “ Jasbinder Singh, an Indian, was supposed to come and receive us but he didn't pick up our call from the airport.” 

 

 DoI informed that it is investigating whether their visas are genuine or fake. DoI added that since this is a foreign employment-related case, they can't dig into aspects other than visa and passport issues.

 

Preliminary investigations by DoI show that the youths were lured by their own relatives into paying huge chunks of money to the agent. DoI has even detained the mother of one of the youths deported from Georgia as it suspects that she is also working as an agent. 

 

Director General at DoI, Kedar Neupane, told Republica that they are investigating the visas with the help of the police to ferret out other information. “Since this is purely related to foreign employment, we can't do much investigating except visa and immigration issues,” he said, adding that they would coordinate with police to track down the agents and provide justice to the victims. 

 

The number of employment-related deportation cases have been on the rise at DoI in the last few months and the latter says it is unable to conduct detailed investigation in all cases.