Fake job racket: IT professionals rescued from Myanmar return to Chennai

Chennai: A group of 13 IT professionals from Tamil Nadu, including a woman, who were lured to Thailand with promise of decent employment but illegally taken to Myanmar, were brought back to Chennai on Wednesday. They were rescued through a joint operation undertaken by the State and Union governments.

State Minister for Non-Resident Tamils Welfare, Refugees and Evacuees, Gingee K S Masthan, received the rescued persons at the airport. The minister said that the agents who sent them on tourist visas to Thailand would be identified and taken to task.

He said the rescue of the 13 persons was the first phase of the operation and that they would be provided financial help by Chief Minister M K Stalin. The chief minister had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention in rescuing 50 IT professionals from the State whom he heard were trapped in unsafe working conditions in Myanmar,

The rescued persons who suffered physical and mental torture in the hands of unscrupulous employers at Mayanmar, appealed to the government through their families, whom they contacted after their tormentors demanded huge amount of money if they had to leave the job.

They had applied for permanent IT jobs for which online advertisements were placed by some private companies that recruited them after collecting huge fee from them. A total of 300 persons from India are said to be taken to Thailand by the racketeers and 50 of them were from Tamil Nadu.

Though they were expected to reach Chennai on Tuesday night, their journey was delayed due to issues relating to immigration clearance. The Indian missions abroad had issued them emergency travel documents as the employers had seized their passports, it is learnt.

Masthan said the State government had borne the travel expenses of the employees from Myanmar to Chennai via Thailand and also to their home towns.