Police arrested a person, suspected of working in cahoots with human traffickers, from the Tribhuvan International Airport yesterday.

On a special tip-off, detectives from the Airport Security Guards caught Bhimsen Tamang of Tupche, Nuwakot, with 20 Nepali passports, including two Machine Readable Passports, around 6pm yesterday while Tamang was queuing up for luggage check at the airport before boarding a SpiceJet plane bound for New Delhi.

Tamang told interrogators he was heading to India with the passports at the behest of Rupesh Shahi, a promoter at the Kuleshwor-based Evergreen Manpower Recruitment Company.

“I was asked to fly to India with the passports to hand them over to Raj Kumar Adhikari,” he told police. Investigators, however, said Tamang was on his way to Afghanistan via New Delhi. An investigator said the passports recovered from Tamang’s possession belonged to people from hilly districts.

It is mandatory for an authorised person to possess labour permits to push Nepali passports into foreign counties.

Passports of Nepalis willing to work in a number of Gulf countries are taken to India for affixing seals of embassies concerned as Nepal does not have embassies of these counries.

“Tamang has failed to explain why he was heading to New Delhi with Nepali passports,” an investigator said.

Police suspect that the passports were being pushed into India to affix photos of other people on them.

Investigating officials have handed over Tamang to the Metropolitan Police Range, Hanumandhoka, for further investigation.

Published on: 19 August 2012 | The Himalayan Times