November 28, 2007	Wednesday	Ziqa’ad 17, 1428

NEW DELHI, Nov 27: Indian military personnel are under investigation for suspected human trafficking, senior officials said on Tuesday.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was called in after the defence ministry rejected the army’s plan for an internal probe, said one official who asked not to be named.

The affair came to light when four civilians were caught this month at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport trying to leave for Germany on military passports.

“We declined the army headquarters’ suggestion for an internal probe because a wider implication is suspected,” the official said. CBI spokesman G. Mohanty declined comment. The civilians obtained the passports as part of a batch issued for a military band to perform in Germany.

“Additional documents were to be returned if not used but instead photographs of civilians were stuck on four of them and the passports were endorsed by an army headquarters officer,” a ministry official said.

“The four who were arrested this month were trying to use the tampered papers to leave the country,” she added.

The story broke after the national parliament set up a panel in May to probe a long-running trafficking racket involving five MPs who supplied false papers for money.

Two years ago, the CBI framed criminal charges against a senior Indian diplomat for trafficking after nine members of a government-sponsored dance troupe disappeared upon leaving the country. The case is still being heard.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimates about 150,000 people are annually trafficked in south Asia, making the region second only to southeast Asia for human trafficking.—AFP