IANS/Chandigarh

At least 700 people from Punjab and Haryana are stuck in strife-torn Iraq, officials from both states said yesterday.
The Punjab government has submitted a list of 514 people from the state who are stuck in Iraq while Haryana officials said families of 147 people have provided details of their relatives stranded there.
Six men from Punjab’s Gurdaspur district returned home on Saturday from Iraq.
Official sources here said many more people from both states could be stuck in Iraq as some families have still not contacted the two state governments.
Punjab’s NRI Affairs Minister Tota Singh said Punjabis in Iraq were safe. However, he said the central government should arrange their safe exit as soon as possible as conditions in Iraq were worsening every day.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Saturday spoke to Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and assured him that all Punjabis in Iraq were safe.
Of those from Punjab stuck in Iraq, the highest number of 224 was from Hoshiarpur district followed by Jalandhar (40), Ropar (37), Gurdaspur (36) and Patiala and Kapurthala (35 each). The rest are from other districts in Punjab.
Over 40 Indians, mostly from Punjab, were kidnapped by insurgents on June 11 in northern Iraq’s Mosul town.
Most Indians in Iraq are construction or skilled workers.
In Haryana, of the 147 people stuck in Iraq, the highest numbers were from Yamunanagar, Kurukshetra, Ambala and Karnal districts.
The North American Punjabi Association (NAPA) yesterday demanded that the Punjab and central governments should announce a grant of Rs1mn to each worker returning from Iraq to rehabilitate them and start a new life in Punjab.
NAPA executive director Satnam Singh Chahal said the people returning from Iraq needed help for rehabilitation.
“Many youth are promised jobs in Dubai, Kuwait and Jordan but they are taken by travel agents to Iraq instead. Once the youth reach there, they do not have the option of returning. It is a miserable trap. The youth spend lakhs of rupees of hard earned money or sell land to go abroad, and end up in a life of hell,” Paramjit Singh, who returned from Iraq after working there for over two years, said.
Bhagwant Mann, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Lok Sabha member from Sangrur, has taken to the social media and set up a helpline to reach out to youths stranded inside Iraq and also connect to their families in Punjab.
“Though I don’t have the actual figure, I am told that up to 4,000 Indians, mostly Punjabis, are stuck in Iraq,” Mann said.
“Majority of the youth are taken to Dubai, Jordan and Kuwait and then sold off to companies in Iraq,” he added.
“Rural youths and also those from smaller towns just want to go abroad by any means. They see no future and employment for themselves in Punjab. Despite big promises, the Punjab government does little for them. The levels of frustration are high,” Satnam Singh, a Jalandhar-based travel agent, said.
“The unscrupulous travel agents take advantage of this situation and exploit such youth. They swindle them of lakhs of rupees and dump them in countries like Iraq,” he said.
The families of the men stuck in Iraq, who are mostly poor or lower middle class, say they can only hope for the return of their loved ones.
“We don’t have the resources or money to get them back. We want our boys back,” said Baldev Singh, a relative of one of the hostages in Iraq.
The story of Antaryami and two others, who were taken hostage in Iraq nearly a decade back, is still fresh in the minds of people but that has hardly deterred youths from risking everything to go to Middle East countries, particularly Iraq.