Asia-Pacific
Stranded Indian workers seek shelter in Afghan temple
(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-01-10 20:53
 |
Large Medium Small |
|
 Indian migrant workers stranded in Afghanistan eat lunch at a Sikh temple in Kabul January 10,2010. [Photo/Agencies] |
KABUL: Dozens of Indian labourers have been forced to take refuge in Kabul's Sikh temple after job agents who promised lucrative jobs in the unstable capital disappeared, leaving the men penniless and without passports.
Billions of dollars in Western military contracts have turned Afghanistan -- long a source of refugees fleeing chronic conflict -- into an unlikely magnet for migrant workers willing to risk their lives for a more lucrative pay packet.
Mumbai native Subhedar Khandu is one of them. He said he paid 150,000 Indian rupees ($3,300) to an agent who promised he would earn $800 a month doing construction in Afghanistan.
"I took out a loan to pay the agent, who I met in Bombay. I thought I would get a one-year contact," Khandu said.
Instead, when he arrived in November, he was locked up in a house with other labourers, given only one meal per day and no work or salary. When his visa expired a month later, the agent vanished and the men turned to their embassy in desperation.
"We were locked in a kind of camp for one month. This is much better but we have nothing to do still, we just sleep a lot."
Contractors supplying foreign troops, who have been fighting in Afghanistan for over eight years, often rely on foreign migrant workers for menial but comparatively well-paid jobs in construction, food preparation and other fields.
Many of those stranded had been transferred from Dubai, a popular destination for poor Indians who often pay hefty fees to secure work earning much more than they could at home.
"About six months earlier, we had stray cases of Indians sent by unscrupulous agents to Afghanistan from Gulf countries, mainly from Dubai, on the false promise of remunerative employment," the Indian embassy in Kabul said in a statement.
"This trickle suddenly turned to a veritable flood, including also some cases of use of fraudulent visas," the statement added. The embassy is helping cover the costs of feeding the men, and has also sent doctors to check their health, but declined to give an overall total of the number affected.
