Gujarat DGP denies reports of toddler going missing from Nicaragua-bound flight

Ahmedabad: Gujarat Director General of Police Vikas Sahay on Monday refuted reports that a 2-year-old boy on board the Nicaragua-bound flight that was sent back to India from France had gone missing.

The Nicaragua-bound aircraft, an Airbus A340, carrying 276 passengers, was grounded in France for four days over suspected human trafficking. It landed in Mumbai in the early hours on December 26.

"The news report (claiming the child is untraceable) is incorrect. Our officers checked the records of passengers and found out the boy had already returned home with his parents," said Sahay.

As per news reports that appeared during the day, the 2-year-old boy was not accompanied by anyone during the flight and had gone untraceable.

Some 60 passengers are from Gujarat and many of them have been questioned by the CID-Crime in a bid to unearth a suspected illegal immigration network operating from the state, officials had said earlier.

They are being questioned to find out whether they had any plans to cross into the USA illegally after reaching Latin America, officials had said some days ago.

"They were sent back from France. Now there was a rumour they had planned to enter into the US illegally after landing at Nicaragua. In their statements, they told us that they were going there as tourists. We're going into the details to find out who were agents behind their trip," Additional Director General of Police, CID - Crime and Railways, S P Rajkumar, had said on December 29.

The chartered flight, which was operated by Romanian charter company Legend Airlines and bound for Nicaragua, landed at Vatry near Paris on December 21 for a technical stopover en route from Dubai when the French police intervened.

French authorities launched a judicial investigation into the conditions and purpose of the trip, with a unit specialising in organised crime investigating suspected human trafficking.

Nicaragua has become a popular destination for those seeking asylum in the US.