CHANDIGARH – Three Chandigarh-based travel agents are under the scanner for luring youths from Punjab and Haryana to Iraq for jobs.
Informed sources said the travel agents had promised these youths that they would work in American army camps in Baghdad for a salary of about 800 dollars each.
Instead, these youths were taken to Najaf, about 160 km south of Baghdad, and forced to work at a construction site along with some 300 other people belonging to various nationalities.
At Najaf, they were told that they would be paid a salary of 300 dollars each, but that too was not being paid to them. Sources said both the Central and Punjab Governments were trying to verify the antecedents of these travel agents and their contacts in Iraq. Enforcement agencies might move against them in the coming days.
