With the arrest of a 33-year-old man, the sleuths of Delhi Police of New Delhi district have busted a gang of touts, operating since 2007, who used to dupe foreign tourists by posing as Government authorised agents and by offering to plan customised tour packages in India. Police said there are several cases registered against the accused agent and his associates for duping foreigners in national Capital.
The accused has been identified as Idrees Shamshad Bhat a native of Srinagar in Jammu & Kashmir and was presently residing at Jungpura Extension in New Delhi. Police have also launched manhunt to nab the remaining accused.
According to Madhur Verma, the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), New Delhi district, on March 20, a complaint was received by a foreign national Jonrong Wang, a Canadian national who said she was cheated by a gang of touts who on pretext of providing her a tour package in country took money but did not deliver the tour package.
“A case was registered and investigation was taken up. During investigation, several raids were carried out and one accused Idrees Shamshad Bhat was arrested. Upon search of the booking office several incriminating documents were discovered which showed that the touts were targeting foreigners visiting Connaught Place and New Delhi area,” said the DCP.
“During interrogation, the accused disclosed that he along with his associates would trap innocent foreigner tourists by offering them attractive and customised tour packages and collect all the money in advance. Thereafter, they would either not deliver the tour package at all or they would just provide them some low-grade tour thus cheating the foreigners,” said the DCP.
“In this way the gang would earn huge amounts of money from the cheated foreigner tourist, but due to their connivance they could not be nabbed so far for their activities as they remained in Delhi during winter and would take shelter in J&K in summer season,” the DCP said, adding further investigation is going on.