GAGANDEEP AHUJA Monday, 04 January 2010
Parents urges Preneet Kaur for their release
PATIALA : The parents of 37 Punjabi youths have urged union government to get the boys released from Moroccan jail who were languishing there since 2004.
The union minister for state for external affairs Preneet Kaur, on Monday directed the officials in her ministry to take up the matter immediately with the Indian High Commission in Morocco.
She assured the delegation of a thorough probe and appropriate action to get the boys released from Moroccan jail.
Earlier a deputation led by Sukhpal Singh Khaira MLA Bholath alongwith parents of 37 Punjabi youths who had gone missing en-route to Spain from India in the year 2004, handed over a memorandum to Preneet Kaur here Monday.
Khaira said that these 37 young boys aged between 18-25 had left Punjab in the year 2004 through a scrupulous travel agent who had promised them safe passage to Spain in Europe.
Instead of taking them to Spain, the agent took them to Mali in Africa in November 2004. The last call that the parents of Arun Kumar, one of the boys, received was on 24-12-2004 who disclosed that the said agent had promised to take them from Mali to Spain in a boat.
Thereafter the parents of these 37 youths lost contact with the boys and were reported missing for the last 5 years.
On December 31, 2009 one boy Jaswant Singh called his uncle Sukhdev Singh of V. Jalal Nangal Distt. Hoshiarpur to tell him that all these 37 boys who had been duped by the agent were languishing in a Moroccan jail for the last 5 years without any ray of hope.
PATIALA : The parents of 37 Punjabi youths have urged union government to get the boys released from Moroccan jail who were languishing there since 2004.
The union minister for state for external affairs Preneet Kaur, on Monday directed the officials in her ministry to take up the matter immediately with the Indian High Commission in Morocco.
She assured the delegation of a thorough probe and appropriate action to get the boys released from Moroccan jail.
Earlier a deputation led by Sukhpal Singh Khaira MLA Bholath alongwith parents of 37 Punjabi youths who had gone missing en-route to Spain from India in the year 2004, handed over a memorandum to Preneet Kaur here Monday.
Khaira said that these 37 young boys aged between 18-25 had left Punjab in the year 2004 through a scrupulous travel agent who had promised them safe passage to Spain in Europe.
Instead of taking them to Spain, the agent took them to Mali in Africa in November 2004. The last call that the parents of Arun Kumar, one of the boys, received was on 24-12-2004 who disclosed that the said agent had promised to take them from Mali to Spain in a boat.
Thereafter the parents of these 37 youths lost contact with the boys and were reported missing for the last 5 years.
On December 31, 2009 one boy Jaswant Singh called his uncle Sukhdev Singh of V. Jalal Nangal Distt. Hoshiarpur to tell him that all these 37 boys who had been duped by the agent were languishing in a Moroccan jail for the last 5 years without any ray of hope.
