Kolkata, Oct 16 (IANS): The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), probing the fake passport case in West Bengal and Sikkim, has uncovered links of an international woman trafficking racket with this scam.

The central agency sleuths have secured some definite clues of this link following the arrest of a man, identified as Varun Singh Rathor, from Naxalbari under Siliguri sub-division in Darjeeling district of West Bengal on Saturday night.

Sources said that the central agency sleuths have secured crucial information about Rathor’s links with an agent network in Nepal, who were mainly responsible in trafficking Indian women, mainly from West Bengal and Sikkim, through the neighbouring country.

The suspicion of the CBI on this count deepened as majority of the fake passports recovered from Rathor were that of women mainly hailing from the northern West Bengal and adjacent Sikkim.

Rathor is the second person to be arrested in connection with CBI’s ongoing investigation in the fake passport case, the first being the Gangatok's Passport Seva Laghu Kendra Senior Superintendent Goutam Kumar Saha, who was arrested while accepting a bribe of Rs 1.90 lakh.

As part of the crackdown on the fake passport racket, searches were conducted at 50 places in Kolkata, Gangtok, Siliguri, Darjeeling, and Alipurduar.