A blast from the past has, apparently, failed to shake the Punjab Government out of slumber.
It did precious little to warn the people of the pitfalls of searching the greener pastures abroad despite harrowing experiences of the youngsters from the State in Iraq three years back.
Nearly 10 men returned to Punjab in 2011 with scores of harrowing tales of slavery, of destitution, of deprivation, of torture, of clearing landmines in foreign lands, and of exchanging hands after being sold off like common commodities.
Failing to learn lessons from the history, the State Government failed to generate awareness among the people, especially youngsters, regarding the “ugly side” of leaving their homeland chasing dollar dreams in the alien countries.
With family members of Punjabi youth stranded in strife-torn Iraq oscillating between apprehension and hope, despair and elation, the Government authorities are getting remorseful over its sloppy attitude in dealing with the menace of fraudulent travel agents.
Despite several similar incidents, numerous judgments and directions by the courts, no lesson was learnt — not only by the State Government, but also from the people. Besides, the State Government could not effectively generate awareness in this regard, coupled with its failure to take effective preventive measures.
Even as the Punjab Government had finally passed The Punjab Prevention of Human Smuggling Bill, 2012, in December 2012, after almost three-year delay, aimed at checking the innocent Punjabis from being duped by fraudulent travel agents whose only aim was minting maximum money, it failed to curb the menace in reality.
The Bill, mainly aimed at checking the malpractices of the travel agents, made it mandatory for them to register themselves with the State Government, besides the authorities can anytime verify their credentials and registration and in case any agent found illegal, they will be penalised for three to seven years of imprisonment and the offence will be non-bailable.
“Despite strict laws, many people still get in hands of these travel agents and get cheated. Somewhere, the awareness is less among people which needs to be generated as much as possible. It seems people in urban set ups are aware, but not those living in rural areas,” a senior Government official, requesting anonymity, told The Pioneer.
The official admitted that the State Government, despite having stringent laws and set up, has failed to curb the menace to some extent. At the same time, the official stated that most of the people have gone abroad was before the law came into force.
Many of the family members of the youth abducted in Iraq have admitted that the travel agents have promised them a job in Dubai, while they ended up in Iraq.
Unauthorised travel agents in various towns of Punjab are in touch with hiring agents of various construction companies in Iraq who lure job-seeking youngsters by promising them jobs that offer monthly salaries in the range of $1,000 to $1,200 for which they are told to pay a fee of Rs2 lakh-Rs4 lakh. It has been learnt that owing to disturbances in Iraq, no one is willing to work there. So the agents send boys to Dubai on tourist visas where they are handled by the local agents, and kept them in Dubai for a few days without any work. When they get desperate to work and earn money, the agents tell them that due to some problems they couldn’t get the jobs in the promised companies in Dubai and offer jobs in Iraq which they accept.
Paramjit Singh, younger brother of Kamaljit Singh, a youth from Hoshiarpur who has been abducted by the insurgents, had returned from Iraq about eight months ago and could not succeed in going back. He first went there in 2011.
Similar to the sordid tales of Punjabis who returned in 2011 from Iraq, Paramjit said they were sold to agents in the strife-torn country for just $400.
He pointed out that the entire game-plan of taking youngsters to the Middle East was managed by agents in Mumbai and New Delhi. “The agents in Punjab are linked with them but do not have a proper idea of the whole racket,” he said.
The current state of affairs could not have been the same if the State Government had taken the April 2003 judgment by Justice Amar Dutt seriously in the infamous Malta tragedy.
Justice Dutt had asked the Chief Secretaries of the State of Punjab and Haryana, and Chandigarh Administration, to “explore the feasibility of using print, audio or electronic media for educating the masses about the pitfalls” falling prey to fake travel agents.
The Judge had also asked the authorities to “consider the advisability of taking steps for educating masses after consulting the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of labour,” besides exploring the possibilities to prevent middlemen from making unwarranted profit by regulating recruitment and letting everyone know about demands sent by different countries for skilled and unskilled labour.