BENGALURU: The state government, in coordination with the Indian embassy, has managed to secure the release of two people who were stuck in Cambodia after they had gone there on the promise of jobs. The Karnataka NRI Forum coordinated the whole effort and secured the release of Ashok and Jayapal.
According to Arati Krishna, vice-president of the Karnataka NRI Forum, at least 50 other Kannadigas are stuck in Cambodia after being trapped by agents and those running dating apps. Their mobile phones and passports are taken away and they are forced to pretend to be women on dating apps and lure Indian men. Those who want to quit and return are asked to pay up huge amounts and if they don’t, they are put in a dark room and tortured, she explained.
Arati Krishna also suspected that some women from the state may also be trapped in Cambodia where their voice is used to impersonate others on the dating apps. The agents lure youths with offers of huge salaries for data entry operators and once there, the phones and passports are taken away. The victims are then forced to pose as women on dating apps to lure men.
A teary-eyed father of Ashok said the scamsters had demanded Rs 20 lakh to let go of him. “I am poor, where will I raise such huge amounts? I sent my son to Cambodia due to our poverty, but things went bad. Nobody else should face the situation my son did”, he said.
Ashok said, “They offered me Rs 1.5-2 lakh per month salary for market trading data entry. I had completed my SSLC and I thought the offer was good. Initially, the agents took Rs 1.60 lakh from me and I came to know that it was a Chinese company only after I reached there. I was told to operate fake profiles of girls on the dating app and Indian men are the targets. The agents are from Karnataka and they sell us to people there”.
He said that if they refuse the job, they are forced to pay up Rs 13 lakh and if the jobseekers can’t pay up, they are forced into a dark room and tortured. About 500 people from Karnataka are caught in the network and are unable to come out, Ashok had told his father over phone.