Over a dozen Kashmiri youths among thousands rescued from Thailand-Myanmar job scam

Srinagar: The intelligence agencies of India have rescued thousands of youths, who had been trafficked by a cyber fraud syndicate, from Myanmar. The rescued youths include over a dozen Kashmiri youngsters who had fallen prey to the cyber fraud syndicate operating from Myanmar. These youngsters were rescued and repatriated and later handed over to the Counter Intelligence wing of Jammu and Kashmir Police.

Unemployed youth across India have been falling in the trap of these fake job scams. The job opening links on social media sites are mostly posted by fraudsters, offering jobs in different countries across the world. These sites run proper exams and interviews before calling the candidates to foreign countries. Some of these youngsters were even given air tickets while some were called to come on their own.

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“The unemployed youth from Kashmir Valley were searching for jobs on different websites. There are 13 youngsters, including females as well, who were trying to look for jobs online, specially, on Facebook. They came to know about these jobs, and clicked on these links and got scammed. They were promised jobs in foreign countries like Thailand and the agents lured them to reach foreign countries on the promise of a job, and once they reached Thailand, they discovered there was no job. They were forced to get into illegal criminal activities like scamming youngsters across the globe, specially Indian citizens. They were also asked to indulge in sexual activities online. However, the timely intervention of Indian agencies helped these 13 youngsters from Kashmir who were rescued along with other Indian youths. CIK got them to Kashmir and counselled them. They were then handed over to their parents,” said Tahir Ashraf, SSP CIK.

According to security agencies, many more youngsters are still trapped in Thailand and Myanmar. The family of one of the youths from Srinagar has been running from pillar to post to get their son back. Faizan Rasool from Srinagar’s Safa Kadal area is still trapped and has lost touch with his family.

“My son had gone outside Kashmir for a job. He first went to New Delhi and later reached Bangkok. He was accompanied by a friend who is also from Srinagar. On reaching Thailand, there was a car waiting for both of them and drove them for around 15 hours and they reached Myanmar. We had contact with him till they reached Myanmar but after that we have not spoken to him at all. I want my son back,” said Ghulam Rasool, father of Faizan.

All the youngsters who were rescued and brought back to Srinagar were counselled and later handed over to their families.