BENGALURU: Two people from the city who had been duped by a ‘placement agent’ have been rescued from Malaysia by the External Affairs Ministry (MEA).
Prabhu and Rajeev, both in their early 20s, had been contacted by an Agra-based placement agent named Rajiv Chaha with jobs on board a ship. He took `1.25 lakh each from them, but did not keep his end of the deal. After they filed a police complaint against him, he finally sent them to Malaysia on November 9.
However, when the duo landed in Malaysia, the local agent who received them asked for his share. Prabhu and Rajeev refused to pay more saying they had paid the full amount to Chaha.
The Malaysian agent collected their passports and locked them up in an apartment for 19 days in a small town called Sibu. They were given food only once a day and were repeatedly told to call their parents and arrange for the money.
But when local BJP leader Anil Chalageri came to know about this from a fellow BJP man, he wrote to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on November 30. Soon, action was initiated to rescue the two men.