Hyderabad: T. Chandraiah and five others from a group of 150 people contacted the Migrants Right Council of India and explained the pathetic situation in Iraq, wherein the workers were being starved for not agreeing to the terms of the employers.
“All these workers have reportedly paid Rs 1 lakh to the agents on assurance that they would be given jobs in a construction company with Rs 22,000 as the monthly salary with free food and accommodation,” said Mr Bheem Reddy of Migrants Council of India (MCI).
The MCI has written to the Central and the state governments seeking intervention to bring back the workers. And, though some companies that have shut down due to the violence in the region have given back the passports of the workers, they haven’t paid any salaries or even money for flights back home.
These workers are now stranded in Iraq with no proper food and accommodation. “Over 200 Telugu people including my friends who were working in a hotel in Kirku city, were given back their passports and were asked to go back home. But they did not pay six months’ salaries or money for flight tickets.
Now they are stranded,” said Mr M. Balakrishna, who recently returned from Iraq. The condition of these 200 Telugu men is worse as the hotel has closed down and the owners themselves are leaving the country.
While some Indians working in non-Iraqi firms are being sent back by the companies, it’s a tough task reaching the international airports - in Baghdad and Basra - through the strife torn region. “To reach the airport in Baghdad, we have to travel about 250-300 km but the situation is very volatile with bombing and cross firing taking,” said Mr Mohd. Iqbal a civil engineer from West Godavari.
