Pilgrims from the state, who were duped by a city-based tour operator, Assets Tours and Travels, in the name of pilgrimage to Jerusalem in Israel, reached the city on Thursday morning. A special bogey in the Dakshin Express was arranged free of cost for their journey from New Delhi. The pilgrims were stranded in Egypt’s Cairo from May 29, as the owner of the hotel where they stayed confiscated their passports and threw them out for non-payment of bills. The tour operator, reportedly, had collected all the money in advance but had not made payment to the hotel. They victims were sent to Delhi after the intervention of Centre.
All the 64 pilgrims sat on a dharna in front of the Goplapuram police station demanding the arrest of the tour operator Francis Xavier immediately. Police officials and political leaders assured them the culprits will be booked. Secunderabad MLA Jayasudha, who visited the pilgrims, said that all the pilgrims duped by the agent will be refunded their money. Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports said Xavier was already taken into custody. Gopalapuram sub inspector S. Chandra Shekar Reddy had earlier in the day said that they had received information that Xavier was in the city itself and that they were working on tracing his exact location, tracking his cellphone signals.
Meanwhile, Gopalapuram police took Xavier’s assistant Prashanth into custody. The accused was leading the tour on behalf of Francis Xavier. Though the police had taken another person named Lourd into custody earlier, he was let off. They said Lourd was not involved in the cheating case and that he was just another pilgrim, who was assisting Prasanth in the tour.