New Delhi: Police have registered two cases against travel agencies for allegedly duping people on the pretext of placing them in jobs abroad that turned out to be fake and left them stranded overseas. Two persons, one from Bihar and another from Uttar Pradesh, lodged complaints with the ministry of external affairs against the agencies allegedly operating in southeast Delhi’s New Friends Colony. Sahil Ali from Uttar Pradesh, who has a doctorate, was allegedly sent to Malaysia by one of the agencies on the promise of a job. However, he ended up stranded there for nearly two months. Speaking to TOI, his brother Rashid said the family repeatedly tried to contact him but got no response and eventually filed a complaint with the ministry. After almost two months, Sahil managed to contact his family and asked them to book a return ticket. Authorities later traced him, and he is expected to return to India on Wednesday. In the other case, Ritesh Kumar, a resident of Bihar’s Gopalganj, filed a complaint. Kumar said in his complaint that a Delhi-based agency was involved in the recruitment. A senior police officer said Kumar was promised a job, but upon arriving in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to take on some other work, which was not the job he had been told about. When he expressed his desire to return, but was stranded. Officials from the office of the protector of emigrants said the agency is not registered under the Emigration Act, 1983, and not authorised to conduct overseas recruitment. Police said that in both the cases, FIRs were registered under Sections 10 and 24 of the Emigration Act. A senior police officer said that the people who were duped were from small villages in other states. They were often lured with the enticing promise of high-paying jobs abroad. “We found both the establishments were closed,” the officer said. In Jan, police registered two cases after complaints from three men who were cheated by two recruitment firms.
