'We weren't hostages, but our plight was similar'
Until he reached Afghanistan, Chuda Mani Rai, a resident of Kerabari VDC-9 in Morang district, had no inkling what was in store for him. Relying on a nexus of human traffickers, the 18-year-old landed in the war-ravaged country on a visiter visa after almost three months of hassle and uncertainty in Delhi.Chuda Mani, the youngest of 10 Nepali workers rescued by the Nepali embassy in Pakistan with the assistance of the International Organization of Migration (IOM) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), had been told that a van fluttering a UN flag would arrive in Kabul, the Afghan capital, to pick him up.
Stepping out of the plane at Kabul International Airport, he started looking desperately for the UN van. “But there was no UN van,” he says. “That was when I first realized that I was in trouble.”
Gopal Karki, a key member of the trafficking nexus, tried to assuage Chuda Mani´s fears. “Don´t worry,” said Gopal, whose name in his passport was Kedar Karki. “Everything will be alright.” But, nothing was alright thereafter. Chuda Mani and others were told that he would be taken straight to the US army base in Kabul to work as security guards.
At a camp in Kabul, Chuda Mani was trained in the use of the AK-47 rifle. “When I held an AK-47 in my hands, I was on cloud nine,” he says. “I started dreaming of earning US dollars. I was very hopeful that I would soon pay off my debts.” He wanted to fulfill all the dreams of his newly-wed wife Chandra. “I left my wife just a month after marriage,” says Chuda Mani. “All the hassles I was going through were for the sake of my wife, my family and our future.”
But when his 30-day visiter visa expired without his getting a job, he realized that he was indeed in big trouble. Karki, the agent, was still telling him not to worry. A few days later, an Afghan police team raided the camp and sought $400 from each of the 10 Nepali workers for overstaying their visas. None of them had money. They were all frightened.
In the night, Karki whisked all the workers away from the camp. “We were shifted to a new camp every week. We had no idea where we were,” says Chuda Mani, adding, “After all, our status was illegal by then.”
In one such temporary camp, Lil Bahadur Kafle of Ilam district fell sick. He could not breathe. The room where the workers were kept was congested and without any ventilator. “We were all suffocating,” Chuda Mani says. “Only after we smashed a window pane and made holes through a wall covered with cardboard did we have some fresh air. It was horrible.”
One and a half months ago, Karki took the stranded workers to a guest house at Bagram, some 40 km northeast of Kabul. He told them that he would return the next morning. But he never did. “The guest house owner gave us rice and vegetables,” says Chuda Mani. “But we could not pay for the food. The owner then started threatening us. He would place a sharp knife to our stomachs and threaten to kill us if we did not give him money. To save our lives, we lied to him several times. Every time he pointed the knife at our throats, we promised to pay him the next day.”
“We were not held hostage, but our situation was somewhat similar,” says Subash Chandra Rai, of Khotang district. “They would ask me why I was not a Muslim. I could not even lie. They knew I was either Hindu or Buddhist.”
When surrounded by some rowdy locals, Chuda Mani once tried to lie. He said he was Muslim. But when he failed to prove that, he was chased away. “They even pointed a pistol at me,” he says. “I just ran.”
Chuda Mani paid Rs 400,000 to Milan Thapa, another key member of the trafficking nexus, to reach Afghanistan. Some others paid Rs 450,000. Most of them had taken loans. They have now returned empty-handed. They have even lost their passports. “Until we were taken back to Kabul after being rescued from Bagram, I was not certain if I would ever meet my wife again” says Chuda Mani. “I suffered a lot; I lost my money, my passport; but I am at least free now. I hope I can start life afresh.”
The rescued workers on Monday urged Paurakhi Nepal, an NGO working for migrant workers, to help them claim compensations from the agents. Agni Gurung, a paralegal officer at Paurakhi, says, “We will provide legal support to the rescued workers to get their money back.”
Published on: 10 July 2012 | Republica
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