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Politics 37 Missing Punjabi Youth Traced In Moroccan Jail

spnadmin

1947-2014 (Archived)
SPNer
Jun 17, 2004
14,500
19,219
GAGANDEEP AHUJA Monday, 04 January 2010
Parents urges Preneet Kaur for their release
PATIALA : The parents of 37 Punjabi youths have urged union government to get the boys released from Moroccan jail who were languishing there since 2004.

The union minister for state for external affairs Preneet Kaur, on Monday directed the officials in her ministry to take up the matter immediately with the Indian High Commission in Morocco.

She assured the delegation of a thorough probe and appropriate action to get the boys released from Moroccan jail.

Earlier a deputation led by Sukhpal Singh Khaira MLA Bholath alongwith parents of 37 Punjabi youths who had gone missing en-route to Spain from India in the year 2004, handed over a memorandum to Preneet Kaur here Monday.

Khaira said that these 37 young boys aged between 18-25 had left Punjab in the year 2004 through a scrupulous travel agent who had promised them safe passage to Spain in Europe.

Instead of taking them to Spain, the agent took them to Mali in Africa in November 2004. The last call that the parents of Arun Kumar, one of the boys, received was on 24-12-2004 who disclosed that the said agent had promised to take them from Mali to Spain in a boat.

Thereafter the parents of these 37 youths lost contact with the boys and were reported missing for the last 5 years.

On December 31, 2009 one boy Jaswant Singh called his uncle Sukhdev Singh of V. Jalal Nangal Distt. Hoshiarpur to tell him that all these 37 boys who had been duped by the agent were languishing in a Moroccan jail for the last 5 years without any ray of hope.
 

Lucy Ahmed

SPNer
Apr 28, 2008
46
15
Malaysia
How sad...?!!!!! They are too young to have gone through such ordeal.

Someone must seriously look into this matter. Don't they have any Indian Embassasy or representative there?
 

spnadmin

1947-2014 (Archived)
SPNer
Jun 17, 2004
14,500
19,219
Lucy ji

I vaguely remember this story when it first broke. So forgive me if I am fuzzy on the details.

This story is one of several in which a large number of young men went missing in African countries, looking for employment opportunities. They paid, or their families paid, huge sums of money for papers that may have been counterfeit. Various agents were basically defrauding them of their money. The men/boys would be transported to a given country -- expecting to find good wages and their families hoping to receive remittances. Once there they disappeared. In some cases, it is not even clear if they arrived at the appointed destination. This particular story shows they were supposed to go to Spain, were left off in Mali, and ended up in Morocco. It is unknown whether man of these unfortunate young men have been imprisoned for visa violations, or worse happened to them. This story ends with 37 being found. At least now governments can talk. Others have never surfaced, nor have their families heard from them. They disappeared into thin air.
 
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