Katara case: Photos seeking details released

The Delhi Police have found details of 11 people—two women, three teenaged girls and six males—who travelled abroad with Members of Parliament. The police released the photographs of the 11, seeking details about each. The codes written on the photographs like BK1, BK2, RK1, RK2, denotes that they travelled with BJP MPs Babubhai Katara (BK) and Ram Swaroop Koli (RK) to the US, UK and Canada between 2004 to 2007.

Seven of them, BK1 (a 20 or 22-year-old man), BK2 (a 20 or 25-year-old man), BK3 (a 15-year-old girl), BK4 (a 14-year-old girl), BK5 (a 13-year-old boy), BK6 (a 40-year-old woman) and BK7 (an eight-year-old boy) travelled with Katara while RK1 (a 35-year-old woman), RK2 (a 23-year-old youth), RK3 (a 27-year-old girl) and RK5 (a 12 or 13-year-old boy) travelled with Koli. Police said all of them were residents of Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab but their names and addresses provided on their travel documents were fake. Police said once their identities were established, it would be easy to know who fixed the deals and how much the MPs were paid to ferry such people.

A source said, “We have recovered documents like passports, visa applications and air tickets.” The matter came to light when Katara was caught with a woman and a 14-year-old boy at the IGI airport on April 19, while he was trying to ferry them illegally, passing them off as his wife and son. Till now eight people, including five travel agents, have been arrested and a 2,500-page chargesheet has been filed in this connection.