PHAGWARA: It was a joyous moment with tearful eyes of happiness for the families of all seven Youths who returned back from Iraq and arrived at their native places on Sunday. The Youths arrived at Phillaur first and talking to media in the presence of SAD MLA Baldev Singh Khaira in Phillaur here today, They while narrating the tale of their sufferings said they will not ever think about going abroad to earn their livelihood. Khaira said he will raise the issue of fake travel agents in coming Vidhan Sabha session scheduled to begin from August 2. He urged the Government to take solid steps to bring the fake agents behind the bar and to act for returning back of the money of the youths.
Phagwara Youth Komaljit (Son of a Labourer) Mohan Lal when arrived at his residence in Kaulsar locality in Phagwara this noon, He said, now enough is enough and appealed to the youths to work hard in their home country to earn livelihood in place of becoming beggar in abroad. He said 15 youths including 8 Pakistanis were hiding themselves and living in a room in Iraq as one agent of fake travel agents took their passports and IDs .He told that they were not able to work at all due to fear of Iraq Police as they were then without Passports. When they approached to the local agent of Iraq to returned back their passports if could not provide jobs for them he demanded 9600 US Dollars from them. Then they approached their families residing in Punjab who knocked the doors of the Union Government.
The seven youths, including five from Phillaur, one from Phagwara and another from Bholath, were duped by a woman agent Neelam Rani, who, along with her relative Ram Labhaya, had promised them jobs in Iraq.Though the Phillaur police had registered several cases under Sections 420 and 406 against Neelam Rani and Ram Labhaya, both residents of Shotran village, on May 30 this year, but none of the two accused could be arrested till now. The youths, identified as Randeep, Baljeet, Saurav, Sandeep, are residents of the same village. Amandeep is the resident of Attan village near Goraya while Komaljit is a resident of Phagwara and Pravjot Singh belongs to Bholath. The youths lived in Iraq for around eight months.