Mumbai: A 42-year-old man from Karnataka who was part of a human trafficking racket was arrested by the city crime branch after he landed in India on Sunday. Unit 8 of crime branch arrested Yoganand Pujari who was produced before a court and was remanded to police custody.He had been absconding since 2019 in an alleged fake air ticket and visa case facilitating travel to Dubai using forged documents. A Look Out Circular had been issued against him after he remained untraced for nearly seven years.According to the police, the case originated in Aug 2019 when a woman passenger, Simran Tulsyan, was stopped during immigration checks while preparing to fly from Mumbai to Dubai. Officials allegedly found that the return ticket she produced for her journey from Dubai to Mumbai could not be traced in the airline’s reservation system and suspected it to be forged.Earlier, police arrested Mohammed Firoz Rashid Syed alias Ash Khan. Police allege that Khan disclosed Pujari’s involvement, claiming that he prepared fake visas and air tickets and sent them through WhatsApp.Police now suspect that Pujari may have been involved in facilitating the overseas travel of at least four other women—identified in the remand papers as Kishi, Mona, Mamta and Shreya—using similar arrangements.
