Promised job in Italy, Punjab, Haryana youths return home after months in Libyan jail

Aparna Banerji

Jalandhar, October 26

Rahul Sharma, from Tewa in Kurukshetra district in Haryana, is back home after enduring a nightmarish time in Libya, and the horrors he suffered continue to haunt him.

Rahul was among 17 the persons who spent two months in a jail at Tripoli, Libya, where they found themselves as they sought to reach Italy to join a promised job. Rahul, who gave up his Home Guard job to pursue his dream of earning big, said: “I was a Home Guard jawan in India. I was promised a job in Italy, but all I went through was only torture, sleeplessness, death, disease and trauma.”

More may be stuck

We suspect that more individuals may be stuck based on discussions with returnees and recent contacts. With no Indian Embassy in Libya, we rely on our mission in Tunisia for assistance. We’ve urged India to enforce stricter agent regulation and have asked the police for stringent action against unlicensed agents.

Vikramjit Singh Sahney, MP

“We were broken,” Rahul added, talking about the collective experience of the group. “We had no change of clothes and had to remain in the same clothes for months. We could even not take a bath. The place was in the middle of nowhere. We saw children walking around with AK-47 guns and heard shots being fired regularly.”

Rahul’s was elated when he landed a job in Italy that promised him $2,000 a month. The offer came from a Tewa-based agent, Madan Lal. A Jalandhar-based youth, Anmol Singh, who returned to India with Rahul, had come into contact with Madan Lal as Anmol’s sister was based at Tewa.

Rahul reached Dubai on April 8 and was taken to Benghazi in Libya, instead of Italy, and his dreams were shattered. He was told by fellow job-seekers from Pakistan that he had been duped, as they had been — no lucrative job was awaiting him or them in Italy or any destination in Europe.

Rahul desperately wished to come back to India, but he found himself ‘sold’ to criminals in Zuwara, Libya.

“One of the men I was with had managed to hide a phone in his clothing,” said Rahul. “Using it, I contacted MP Vikramjit Sahney over the Internet. Subsequently, 11 of us ran away from the place where we were holed up in Zuwara. When we were running, we saw vehicles with big guns parked at homes.”

They managed to find help in unexpected quarters. “We were first taken to a hotel by men from the Indian Embassy in Tunisia. However, there was a police raid, and we were arrested and taken to jail!” he said. “Later, the embassy men finally freed us and took us to the airport.”

Anmol’s sister Ramandeep Kaur, who was married in Tewa, said: “My brother suffered a lot of torture. They (captors) always pulled him by his hair, but he refused to have his hair cut. He has sores and wounds all over his body.”

“His liver and kidneys have been damaged and his immunity is compromised due to months of starvation. They had little to eat, and flat breads were thrown at them over the walls, as if they were feeding dogs,” she said. “They had to snatch pieces of bread to satiate their hunger. Anmol now stammers while talking and forgets what he is saying. His digestion is still not normal. In jail, they slept in a bathroom in shifts as their bunker didn’t have room for all of them to lie down.”

“Anmol couldn’t sit or lie down for days. He went through repeated torture to protect his hair. The hair of Sukha Singh from Haryana, who returned before Anmol, was cut. A man who tried to run away from the jail fell on the other side of the wall and broke his spine. Guards left him to die a torturous death,” Ramandeep added.

The men who have managed to return from the hell in Libya are full of gratitude for Sahney.

Sahney said, “Based on what these men have said, we believe that more individuals are stuck in horrible conditions,” he said. “There being no Indian embassy in Libya, we had rely on our mission in Tunisia for assistance. We’ve urged India to enforce stricter agent regulation measures and have asked the police for stringent action against unlicensed agents.”