NEW DELHI, June 24: Thirteen youths from Punjab and Haryana, who tried to obtain visas by posing as members of a hockey team in the US embassy, were arrested by the Delhi Police yesterday.They have been charged with cheating and forging documents. A metropolitan magistrate today remanded them to judicial custody for 14 days.The youths had reportedly told US embassy officials that they were members of a Karnal-based club `Metro Young', and they wanted visas because they had been invited to participate in the `Modesto Hockey Tournament' at California, starting July 3. They also furnished fake documents and certificates some of them bearing forged signatures of Indian Hockey Federation president KPS Gill to support their claim that they had played several hockey tournaments at the state and inter-state levels.Officials at the US embassy were, however, not impressed when they interviewed the `hockey team'.The embassy discovered that the invitation from California to `Metro Young' was fake. It wasalso found that an extra page had been inserted in the passport of one of the `team members'. The youths ``gave their game away'' when asked about several technical aspects of hockey like length of the pitch, and positions. It was found that none of them had ever played hockey and that their only objective was to go to the US.The youths told the police that a travel agent in Karnal had promised to get them visas for Rs 4 lakh each. They had already paid Rs 20,000 each as advance to him.
