Jamshedpur, Dec. 11: A cushy job abroad. A plum salary with enough to spend and send home, too. But the dreams of nearly 60 local youths have gone awry with the placement agent allegedly making off with the little savings that the youths had.
The youths today approached the deputy superintendent of police (city) Pravin Kumar Srivastav for action against the culprits after an FIR alleging that the agents had decamped with Rs 10 lakh belonging to them, failed to evoke response.
The agency, Sulbha Tours and Travels, operating from Akashdeep plaza has downed shutters after trouble started brewing last Saturday. “The office has not opened after last Saturday’s incident,’’ said a neighbouring shopkeeper Sunial Kumar Kayasth.
The agency claimed that it was working in tandem with Mumbai-based company Rohila Tours and Travels and had also brought a Bahrain-based agent to the city to meet the candidates. One such victim, S.K. Sharma, a resident of East Plant Bustee in Burmamines said in June this year that he had read an advertisement in a local Hindi daily in which the agency promised semi-skilled jobs in Bahrain and Quatar.
With three years of work experience in the Gulf, Sharma approached the agency.
“On meeting them, I got a feeling that they were genuine. One of the officials asked me to deposit Rs 1,200 for undergoing a medical test before facing the interview board. Like me, nearly a dozen others paid the fee for the medical test which was conducted by a local doctor. Subsequently, we were told that a person from a Bahrain-based company had arrived for the interview.”
The youths were interviewed by the Bahrain agent, Yusuf Khan, on July 7. The interviews continued till July 10 at a residence in Baridih. The six shortlisted candidates were asked to deposit an advance amount of Rs 10,000 (of a total sum of Rs 60,000) for a job in Bahrain. Remuneration were promised to be around Rs 20,000 a month.
“I was looking forward to a job and like the others, I had paid the advance money within the next couple of days. But after collecting the money from us, the agency started playing hide-and- seek with us and the game is on till this date,” Sharma alleged.
According to Srivastava, investigations into the complaint are on.”Actions would be taken against the culprits,’’ he said.
The FIR said the victims were made to spend about Rs 12,000 each after which 27 of them went to Mumbai in phases. On reaching Mumbai, officials of the Rohila Tours and Travels got in touch with the youths and asked them to pay Rs 10,000 each for medical tests.
to be conducted by the Bahrain consulate’s office in Mumbai.
At the same time, Rohila Tours and Travels continued to send intimation
to the other
youths here, informing that they should rush to Mumbai as two batches of
the candidates
have already taken off for Bahrain. But when the second batch arrived in
Mumbai and saw
the first batch also awaiting there things became clear. Al the youth
tried to get through to
the Rohila Tours and Travels office but there was none to be found.
Another youth Madina Wali, a resident of Azadnagar in Mango, said he had
taken a loan
at a very high rate of interest for paying the Sulbha Tours and
Travels. ``Besides, I spent
an amount of Rs 5,000 in Mumbai. Had I known that these people would
turn out to be
looters I would never have taken the loan,'' he said. Wali has a mother,
two sisters and a
physically challenged father with the only source of income being a
small rent that he gets
from portion of his house.
Yet another victim, Jagjit Singh of Golmuri had to sell off his
auto-rickshaw for
accumulating the money to reguster himself and go to Mumbai. The Singh's
are a
seven-member family and now with the only source of income gone he is
virtually left on
the streets.
eom
