Investigating officials in hot pursuit of Abdul Rauf in Chile

He ran a human trafficking network

He travelled from Pakistan to Chile on a forged visa. The Chilean cops, however, managed to arrest him at Iquique in the country’s northern region on January 28 last.

He has since been incarcerated in a prison in Chilean capital Santiago. The sleuths of the Intelligence Bureau and Central Bureau of Investigation are now trying to match Rauf’s voice samples with those of the incarcerated Pakistan man in Chilean capital Santiago.
Meanwhile, sources said that the note New Delhi received from Santiago regarding the arrest of Rauf indicated that he had in fact been involved with a human trafficking network spread from Pakistan to Chile and to North American countries.

A diplomat of the Chilean Embassy in Islamabad had also been involved with the racket and had issued forged visas to Pakistanis seeking to go to US and Canada through the Latin American country.

According to the note, Policia de Investigaciones de Chile busted the racket in November 2010 and arrested 10 Pakistanis, including four kingpins of the racket. The racket promised gullible Pakistanis to arrange for their migration to US or Canada through Chile and collected up to US $ 15000 from each of its victims, many of whom found themselves stranded and helpless, as well as without money and job.

Envoy under scanner

Subsequent investigation brought the Chilean diplomat in Islamabad under scanner. The four Pakistani kingpins of the racket are still in a jail and being tried in a court at Pudahuel district of Santiago.

According to Chilean PDI, Rauf traveled from Pakistan to Chile to intimidate and stop the Pakistani victims of the racket to testify against the kingpins in the court.

The Chilean police sent photos and fingerprints of the man in their custody to the CBI, after they suspected that he could be Rauf, who had an Interpol Red Corner Notice issued against him for his role in the IC 814 hijack.

Rauf is the brother-in-law of Jaish-e-Mohammed’s leader Maulana Masood Azhar, one of the terrorists released by the Indian Government to ensure safe return of the passengers of the Indian Airlines flight, which had been taken to Kandahar in Afghanistan after being hijacked while en route from Katmandu to Delhi.

Sources said that the CBI however had no photo or fingerprint of Rauf to match with the ones sent by its counterpart in Chile.A team of the IB and CBI officials is now in Santiago to ascertain the identity of the incarcerated man and the sleuths are likely to rely on the voice samples, which they had obtained earlier.

Chilean Ambassador to India, Cristian Barros Melet, said that if the arrested man was confirmed to be Rauf, then it could lead to his extradition from Chile to India. External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said on Wednesday that India had to be first convinced about the identity of the man before seeking his extradition.