Bengaluru: The Upalokayukta on Friday hauled up city Police Commissioner M.N. Reddi for shoddy investigations into a complaint lodged by a work-study programme aspirant, who was arrested and deported from Detroit, USA in April last year.
The victim, Paul Jose, had filed a complaint against Bluechip Services International at the Banaswadi police station in March this year after he learnt that other students too had suffered like him, and that the company had continued to send candidates after collecting lakhs of rupees. Paul Jose has stated in the complaint that the deported victims are barred from entering respective countries for the next five years as Bluechip Services International is blacklisted in those countries.
“The police are not aware of immigration or other relevant laws. They are only investigating from the angle that the victim has paid the money and the company had not done its work and have registered a case of cheating. The police are not investigating it from the angle that he was sent to another country where he was arrested and deported. Why was he arrested and deported? What are the exclusive rules and conditions? And did the company have licence or authorisations? Or did the police investigate into whether the company is continuing to commit fraud on the public,” asked Upalokayukta Justice Subhash B. Adi.
As the police seemed to go slow in investigating the case, the victim had approached the Lokayukta to lodge a complaint against the police. Banaswadi Police Inspector Mohan Kumar had presented himself with a report in the case which came up for hearing before the Lokayukta on Friday morning. “I did not look into what they (police) have done. They said the report is ready. If the report is ready, it should be complete. The complainant told me that he was not called by the police for collection of evidence,” said Justice Adi. The court ordered the police to collect all material evidences from him and purse with the investigations in all angles.
Justice Adi then asked Mr Reddi to look into the case personally, as this is a serious matter. “I am not interfering with the investigation, but the police must know what to investigate,” he told Deccan Chronicle.
Paul Jose had flown to the US last April to pursue an MBA under a programme, where he could also earn while studying as assured by Bluechip Services International. Becoming poorer by Rs 8 lakh, he returned to the city getting humiliated after spending a day in prison and his biometrics retrieved by the immigration officials and police at the Detroit airport. The authorities have also barred him from entering the US for five years.
