GURUGRAM: After the probe into the human trafficking case against social media influencer Bobby Kataria and his associates was handed over to the NIA, the agency is planning to seek their police remand. On June 13, the NIA had registered a case against him along with his alleged accomplice Ankit Shokin under various sections of the IPC and the Immigration Act. After registering the case, the NIA moved an application in a local court seeking permission to take over the investigation and sought all records related to the case from the Gurugram police. The court directed the police to hand over the records related to Kataria, on the basis of which he was arrested. On June 11, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued orders to the NIA to take over the investigation, exercising powers under Section 8 read with Sub-section 5 of Section 6 of the NIA Act, 2008. Issuing the order, the ministry said, “The Central Government is of the view that a scheduled offence under the National Investigation Agency Act, 2008 has been committed and in view of the gravity of the offence and its international nexus, it is required to be investigated by the NIA in accordance with the NIA Act 2008.”
A senior NIA official revealed that an NIA DSP posted in Chandigarh has been appointed as the chief investigating officer in the case. Kataria is accused of getting Indian youths employed abroad and then forcing them to work for cyber fraud in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Ankit Shokin, who lives in Laos, opened call centres and took passports, other documents and money of the youths and forced them to work in his call centres. Kataria’s name had surfaced in the smuggling case after job aspirant Arun Kumar of Gopalganj in UP was rescued from Laos along with other youths with the help of the Indian embassy earlier this year. Kataria had also opened a company named MBK Global Consultancy in Singapore, which was allegedly involved in smuggling of Indian youths. He also runs branch offices of his company in Gurugram, Faridabad, Sikar (Rajasthan) and Nabha (Punjab).
