After going through untold misery for months, they return home safely

Visakhapatnam: When Soppari Shiva Shankar landed in Cambodia last June, little did he know that he would soon be operating a fake FaceBook account, presenting himself as an attractive model to trap high-profile customers.

It is not just the fake FB account he was coerced to operate from, his name too got changed without his consent. “We were given a Chinese name. The agent through whom we came to Cambodia after paying Rs 1.5 lakh promised us to give us a data entry operator job. However, we were forced into cybercrime by creating fake names and fake identities through FB and Telegram,” recalls Siva Sankar after reaching Visakhapatnam safely.

Like Siva Sankar, 25 human trafficking victims from Cambodia heave a sigh of relief as Visakhapatnam Commissioner of Police A Ravi Shankar took elaborate efforts to rescue them by coordinating with the Indian Embassy in Cambodia. The recent video of the Commissioner of Police nabbing unauthorised agent Rajesh caught the attention of the stranded Indians at Jinbei-4, who came together to take out a united fight on the street. While some paid heed to the orders of the Chinese handlers in Cambodia, others, who refused to budge, were tortured. “The ordeals were difficult to explain. We were locked in a dark room, given shock treatment, deprived of meals and our salaries were cut. If we failed to listen to them even then, the Chinese leaders used to take our pictures with cocaine packets in our hands and threatened us that the pictures would be sent to the police so that we would be issued a non-bailable warrant,” shares another victim Vanapalli Harish Kumar, who is at present in Lankelapalem. After spending weeks of sleepless nights and indulging in a job that sapped the victims of morale and peace of mind, the Visakhapatnam CP’s video of arresting the agent through which many of them landed in Cambodia gave them a new ray of hope.

“We realised that if we teamed up and revolted, there would be a way out. That’s when we decided to revolt at Jinbei-4,” explain the victims after reaching Visakhapatnam.

Most of the victims belong to middle class families and they aspired to work in other countries to extend financial support to their families.

Even as some of them landed in Visakhapatnam, Anakapalli and neighbouring districts, a majority of them were suffering from health issues.

Meanwhile, the city police arrested two more unauthorised agents, including a job consultancy agent K Ravindranath from Gajuwaka, in Visakhapatnam. The City Commissioner of Police called for a detailed probe into the case so that the human trafficking network would be busted and victims would be saved. By coordinating with the Indian Embassy in Cambodia, Ravi Shankar says, efforts are on to rescue the rest of the victims at the earliest.