40 Duped Keralites and 10 Tamilians Holed up in Indonesia
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Desire for a lucrative job or desperation to find wiggle-room in a tight situation, reasons may vary. But conmen are luring Malayalees into a trap, dangling the foreign job carrot in front of them. Alarmingly often too!
In yet another case of job cheating, 50 Indians, 40 from Kerala and 10 from Tamil Nadu, are stranded in Indonesia, after being duped by agents who took lakhs of rupees offereing jobs in Canada and Korea. In some cases, the agents collected about Rs 3.5 lakh from job aspirants.
The issue came to light after some of them got in touch with the Kerala Samajam in Indonesia, which in turn informed the Indian Embassy. Some of them have been holed up for more than a year at different parts of the country like Nagoya, Batu Aji, Batam and Jakarta.
Speaking to Express from Jakarta, Jose Baby of Mananthavadi said they were offered jobs first in Canada and later in South Korea. In May 2015, three agents - Binu, Sumesh and Anil Mathew of Ernakulam - offered them jobs in Canada and collected Rs 1.25 lakh as advance, said Jose. Later, anotherRs 70,000 was collected for flight ticket, and on arrival USD 2000 was further taken, he added. “Three of us - Nishant and Santhosh of Kannur - came to Batam through Jakarta from Kochi on November 18. Here, three other agents - Santhosh, Najeeb and Mani - collected the money. We were told that South Korea visa would be given in 20 days. We were promised a job at the dismantling section of an electronic company.
“Even after many days, the agents didn’t return. Then we contacted the agents back home, and we were taken to Batua Aji. Meantime our passports were also confiscated.”
“According to the Embassy officials, of late, there are lot of similar cases coming up here. The officials were helpless, since they don’t have the funds to send these people to India. They have been advised to contact their families back home,” Pramod Ellath, secretary of the Kerala Samajam, Indonesia, told Express.