KOCHI: In a suspected case of human trafficking, a Tamil Nadu woman carrying a modified passport was intercepted by the Bureau of Immigration (BoI) at Kochi airport on Wednesday night. The BoI officials handed the woman over to the Nedumbassery police which launched a probe after registering a case.
The woman, a 43-year-old native of TN’s Viluppuram district, was intercepted during a document examination at the immigration counter. Some pages of her passport were found torn and replaced by other pages. She was bound to Oman.
“We suspect the woman was being taken to Oman by human traffickers to work as a maid. Several women from Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have been similarly intercepted at the airport. In all the cases, women were being taken to Muscat,” said a BoI official. The police have registered a case under the IPC and The Passports Act, 1967. The woman was produced in court and remanded in judicial custody.