Gandhinagar: Immigration authorities in Mumbai today questioned 276 Indian passengers, including 21 individuals from Gujarat, who were returned from France.

Shedding light on the development, Sanjay Kharat, SP, CID Crime, stated, “As you may have seen in several news reports, the Romania-based plane destined for the USA via Dubai and France was grounded in France with passengers from Gujarat and several other states of India. Among the passengers who have returned to India, 21 are from Gujarat. Once they arrive in Gujarat, our team will question them. Gujarat CID Crime expects their cooperation with the investigation. We need information on the agents and agencies that made false promises and might have provided forged documents. Therefore, we need information on that. We are diligently working on this, and once we receive full information, we will take proper action against the agencies involved in this.”

The passengers were on a Legend Airlines A340 plane bound for Nicaragua, which was grounded at Vatry airport, east of Paris, for four days due to a human trafficking investigation triggered by an anonymous tip-off. The aircraft had departed from Dubai, and suspicions were raised regarding the possible transportation of human trafficking victims.

Out of the original 303 passengers, 276 returned to Mumbai, while 25 sought asylum in France. Two passengers were initially detained as part of the human trafficking inquiry but were released on Monday after appearing before a judge and subsequently issued expulsion orders from France.

The flight landed in Mumbai at 4 am, and officials conducted detailed immigration procedures and customs checks. The passengers, whose statements were recorded, were permitted to exit the airport after nearly five hours of completing formalities. DeshGujarat