The three youths from Mawa village in Nurpur Bedi area of Rupnagar district, who had got trapped in Saudi Arabia as bonded labourers, returned home on Sunday.
After returning home, Ajay Singh, Jasvir Singh and Suresh Kumar said that they had gone to Saudi Arabia on November 17 for working as truck drivers with a company through a Nangal-based travel agent. They made payment to the agent for the purpose, they said.
However, on reaching Saudi Arabia, a Sheikh took them along and forced them to work as bonded labourers to look after his camels and goats, they claimed.
They said that if anybody refused to do the work, he was beaten up and tortured. The youths said after they ran away to a camp, the local police handed them over to the Sheikh.
Their families were happy over their return. They said the Sheikh took Rs 4 lakh from them for the release of the youths. They rued that the government did not provide any help for the youths’ release.
The Rupnagar police had booked three travel agents under Section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code in this regard and had arrested two of them.
Source Hindustan Times
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