Another Jalandhar family seeks Sushma Swaraj’s help to get son back from Jordan
JALANDHAR: After Sukhwant Kaur of Nurmahal, who has sold, made a slave and tortured in Saudi Arabia for five months, came back to her native place with the help of ministry of external affairs, another case of a family having their son ‘trapped’ in a foreign land has come to fore.
Mandeep Kumar, then 18, had left for Jordan in January 2014 to work as a labourer in a factory based in Amman, the capital city, on a two-year visa. “After completing Class 12, my son left for Jordan to support the family,” said Mandeep’s mother Neelam Rani.
Mandeep’s father Raj Kumar is the only breadwinner of the family of four and works as a daily wager to support his family based in Chanian village of Nakodar tehsil.
Neelam informed HT that Mandeep was suffering from hernia and facing difficulty in doing strenuous work; he left the factory where he had originally gone to work after a couple of months and worked as a labourer in different places for next two years.
“After Mandeep’s visa expired, he had no means to return and surrendered to the police on February 14 this year, in a case of living illegally,” Neelam said.
Mandeep’s uncle Tarsem Lal Sahota said Mandeep was sentenced to three months imprisonment and is currently in Jordan’s Jamailda jail.
“Since last one month, Mandeep calls us every Thursday for five to 10 minutes. The jail authorities didn’t let him contact us in the initial months,” said Sahota.
The family had also written a mail to ministry external affairs on May 22, the copy of which is with HT, requesting them to ask the Jordan government to deport their son back to India, but is yet to receive the reply on the same.