Nine Nepali migrant workers today recounted their 22-day-long ordeal in an isolated area of Turkey. 

The Nepalis who fought the hostage-takers to escape were identified as Tilak Bahadur Pun of Dang, Kusang Tamang of Sunsari, Chitra Bahadur Pun of Rolpa, Tul Bahadur Gharti Magar of Baglung, Jhapendra Kumar Khadka of Rolpa, Megh Bahadur Chhantyal of Myagdi, Suresh Gurung of Kaski, Dal Bahadur Budhathoki of Baglung and Bir Bahadur Pun of Rolpa. All of them save Bir Bahadur arrived in Kathmandu yesterday. 

International human trafficking racketeers, including Bangladeshis, Iranians and Turkish in cahoots with their Nepali associates had lured them into going to ‘Europe, especially Greece’ with the promise of providing them lucrative jobs there. In the first week of April, the racketeers took them to Turkey through Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Oman before holding them captive in a remote area of Turkey. Tilak said he and his friend woke up to the danger facing them only after they realised that they were held captive on the underground floor of a building. “We got trapped by the foreigners in the hope of earning money in Europe. We travelled for more than one week to try our luck. But they turned out to be human traffickers. We were tortured physically and mentally to ask our family members back home for money as ransom,” Tilak said, recounting the harrowing experience. According to Kusang, they were not released even after they paid Rs 2 million each to the traffickers.

“The traffickers brandishing sharp weapons forced us to make telephone calls through SIM cards of Greece to our families in Nepal for ransom, threatening to take our lives otherwise,” he explained, adding that they had paid around Rs 10 million altogether. DSP Shiva Kumar Shrestha said the families of the victims lodged a complaint at the Metropolitan Police Crime Division on May 13, seeking help for their rescue as the foreign racketeers continued to demand ransom instead of releasing them. 

As the MPCD took the initiative to locate the trafficked Nepali men through diplomatic channels, they fought back 12 hostage-takers and escaped captivity on May 25. “Soon after we managed to break their cordon, we went to the local police and the law enforcement agency arrested them,” Tilak said. The National Central Bureau-Kathmandu, a member of the Interpol had requested its Ankara counterpart to facilitate the rescue of Nepali workers.

Published: 25 July 2013 | The Himalayan Times