Youths recount travails in Iraq

A Jalandhar youth holding a live bombshell at an undisclosed location in Iraq. A Tribune photograph

Jalandhar, August 9
More facts have begun emerging in the case of 40 youths from Punjab and Haryana trapped in a remote area of Iraq with three of them returning from there. They had allegedly been detained in a secluded farm house in a town in Iraq for the past more than five months.
In a flagrant violation of the United Nations conventions, the youths were being allegedly forced to clear live bombshells from hundreds of acres of barren land, near Al-Najaf and Karbala towns.
One of them, Kanwaljit Singh, a 26-year-old youth from Khurlapur village in Jalandhar, alleged that conduits of unscrupulous Indian travel agents in Iraq sold them to private contractors. They were forced to clear live bombshells, wreckage of used bombs and missiles from the fields.
“The travel agents promised us a job in the house-keeping sections of the Iraqi military establishments. However, after we landed there, they sold us to contractors who kept us near Al-Najaf town and forced us to clear the fields for a meagre salary of $300,” said Kanwaljit Singh.
“They even took away our passports and demanded Rs 70,000 from us to return to India”, he added.
Earlier, as the families of these youths were unaware of their whereabouts, some of the parents were worried that terror groups might have detained their sons. A few weeks ago, some of the stranded youth had revealed the nature of jobs they were doing to their families. However, they were unaware about where the recovered bombshells were being supplied. This added to the parents anxiety and they feared that the captors might have been supplying the recovered ammunition to some terrorist outfits.
Kulwinder Singh, from Takhni village in Hoshiarpur, who returned along with Kanwaljit, said, “There was a 1500-acre farm located near Al-Najaf and Karbala towns. The farm had turned into a battlefield during the US-Iraq war. The entire field was full of tonnes of live and exploded bombshells. We were asked to pick the bombshells and then dump them in a separate small farm located nearby.”
Kulwinder alleged that no rule of law was followed in that part of the country. “The clearing of wartime wreckage went on for three to four months and no Iraqi official ever visited the place,” he alleged.
The ordeal of the youths had come to fore when Bal Mukand, a resident of Khambra, near Jalandhar, whose 20-year-old son is also trapped in Iraq, lodged a complaint with the police about how his son, along with 40 Indian youths, was detained in a camp located at an undisclosed and semi-forested area in Iraq. He had alleged in his complaint that the youths, most of whom are from Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, were forced to work for terror groups. Meanwhile, the families 12 youths have approached the Ministry of External Affairs to plead their case with Iraqi government for the early release of the stranded youth from Iraq.

Duped by agents

l Their ordeal came to the fore when Bal Mukand, a resident of Khambra, near Jalandhar lodged a police complaint
l Conduits of unscrupulous Indian travel agents sold the youth to private contractors
l Were forced to clear live bombshells, wreckage of used bombs and missiles from fields
l Some families approach the MEA to intervene for their release