Jalalabad East (Moga), September 20
He landed up in Malaysia looking for greener pastures, but ended up being sold to a scrap dealer in mere 500 ringgits (Rs 6,000). Mr Jasbir Singh’s bitter experience is a telling tale of thousands of Punjabi youths who in a bid to earn more fall prey to deceiving travel agents and languish in foreign jails.
Speaking to The Tribune, Mr Jasbir Singh said he was earning Rs 2,000 a month while working as a tractor driver at a local brick kiln. He also had two acres of land, but the very thought of earning big money abroad lured him. First he talked to a travel agent for migrating to Dubai and paid him Rs 10,000 for preparing documents. He also appeared for an interview with a Dubai-based company that promised him to pay Rs 7,000 a month.
Meanwhile, he came in contact with one of his cousins who introduced him to another travel agent, Mr Sukhmandar Singh. Jasbir said Sukhmandar assured him of getting him shifted to a “better” country like Australia where he would get Rs 25,000 per month salary, besides perks and accommodation. The travel agent demanded Rs 3 lakh for the job. Jasbir anyhow managed to get his money back from the previous travel agent. He then sold his two-acre land for Rs 4 lakh and paid Sukhmandar Rs 1.5 lakh in March 2003, while
paying the rest in two installments.
On May 5, 2003, the travel agent took him along with three other Punjabi youths, another from Punjab and two from Haryana, to Chennai. They stayed there for 20-25 days and finally boarded a flight to Malaysia on May 29.
The agent told them that officials of the company in which they would be employed would pick them up from the Kuala Lumpur airport, but when they landed there was nobody to receive them.
The agent had also given them 500 ringgits each and a phone number. Helpless, they called at the given number, but could not converse due to the language barrier. They found a Punjabi man at the airport and sought his help. He told them that the person who was to pick them up could not come for another 2-3 days as their papers were not ready.
They waited for him for three days at the airport without having food and water. They didn’t even go for immigration check, as they were new to the place and knew nothing about the procedure.
On the third day a man robbed them of their money and took them out of the airport without immigration check. They continued to roam around the airport awaiting “company officials”.
“Later, we came across some Tamil men who promised us to get some work, but they sold us to a scrap dealer for 500 ringgits each,” said Jasbir. “We had to work there 19 hours a day and we used to get half a plate of rice to eat during the day,” he added.
He said the scrap dealer didn’t pay them a single penny and also used to beat up those who did not work hard. The police raided the scrap dealer’s shop after 20-25 days and arrested them. They were produced before the court after being kept in custody for 15 days and were sentenced to four months imprisonment.
The police also seized their passport and other papers. He said 20 men were kept in a single barrack and they used to get a rice plate, salted water and rotten fish to eat once a day in jail. He said the police also beat him up twice while he was in jail.
They had nowhere to go after coming out of jail in October.
The police sent them to a camp where people who immigrated to Malaysia illegally were kept. Jasbir told that there were about 5,000 people in the camp including women, out of which about 200 were from India. Some people in the camp had mobile phones through which Jasbir contacted his family in India and narrated his woes to them. His family talked to an acquaintance who knew someone in Malaysia and sought his help.
They gave him Rs 30,000 for Jasbir’s travel ticket, but he pocketed the same. Finally, they traced a relative who also had a friend in Malaysia and he helped Jasbir to return home. Jasbir said it took him a few months to regain health after coming back.
He approached the travel agent to get his money back, but he kept delaying the matter. Jasbir then lodged a complaint with the SSP following which the travel agent was booked.
Back home, Jasbir now has nothing to do, as brick kiln owners are on strike. Jasbir said he was ruing the day he thought about going abroad. “I have also lost my land and have nothing to do now,” he lamented.
