Police re-open old case against Saravana owner

Chennai: In a new development to the human trafficking case filed against P R Sivakumar, managing director (overseas), Saravana Bhavan hotel, the airport police on Tuesday arrested him for sending one of his employees, Ragu Chandran, to the US in 2005 with the help of fake travel documents. Sivakumar was produced before the magistrate’s court in Alandur but, based on the bail he had got from a higher court, the magistrate, Ramanathan, released him. The police have booked Sivakumar as the second accused in the case. According to police, Chandran, set to board a US-bound flight, was intercepted by immigration officials at the Chennai airport on June 30, 2005. Verification revealed one of his documents to be fake. Although he had obtained the visa from the US Consulate, immigration officials did not let him go and handed him over to the airport police. During interrogation, Chandran allegedly informed officials that he had collected the fake document from Sivakumar. Following this revelation, police booked a case against Chandran and Sivakumar, naming them as A-1 and A-2 in the first information report (FIR). However, according to police sources, since Sivakumar was close to several politicians, he was not arrested then. All they did was to file a chargesheet in the case at the Alandur magistrate’s court and declare Sivakumar as an ‘absconding accused’. Following Sivakumar’s recent arrest by the CB-CID police, the airport police have now re-opened the 2005 case. And his arrest on Tuesday was the result. Although he was released, Sivakumar continues to be in remand at the Puzhal prison, as he has not received bail in the CB-CID case. Earlier, US Consulate officials in Chennai had confirmed that two employees of Saravana Bhavan hotel who were taken by Sivakumar to the US in 2006 on the pretext of them attending a fair were indeed overstaying. Consulate officials have sent details to immigration officials in the US to help them trace the duo and verify whether they have work permits and legal status.

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