Woman sold as a slave in Saudi returns home
DUBIOUS Sukhwant Kaur, 55, was on visa procured by a Delhi agent
JALANDHAR: The tears of joy said it all. Sukhwant Kaur, 55, arrived to an emotional reunion with her husband, Kulwant Singh, and daughter, Ranjeet Kaur, at the Amritsar airport on Wednesday, five months after she left for Saudi Arabia on a tourist visa only to be sold as a slave by a dubious travel agent.
Hindustan Times was the first to highlight Sukhwant’s plight. Her husband, Kulwant Singh, appealed to external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj for help on Twitter.
Swaraj tweeted back that Sukhwant would return home on Wednesday.
Sukhwant arrived in Mumbai from Sharjah at 4.15am before she took a flight to Amritsar.
“We are happy now that she is finally back,” said Kulwant. “She had gone for three months. For two months, things appeared normal. After that we learnt that the agent had sold her as a slave. Her captors were demanding money for her release. The agent also went missing. We appeal to the Punjab government to act against such fraudulent travel agents,” he said.
A relieved but tired Sukhwant was received by former Jalandhar Central BJP MLA Manoran- jan Kalia, former local bodies minister Anil Joshi and Amritsar mayor Bakshi Ram Arora.
Sukhwant’s daughter said, “We had lost all hope of seeing her again in this life so you can imag- ine how grateful we are. I was not able to see my mother before she left for Saudi Arabia but now I’m glad I could welcome her back.”
Jagdish Singh, a former sarpanch of Sukhwant’s Ajtani village in Nurmahal, said that the village is eagerly awaiting her return. “It’s a happy homecoming after months of tension,” he said. Later, the family left for its native Ajtani village in Nurmahal near Jalandhar. In January, Sukhwant left for Saudi Arabia on a three-month visa procured by the Delhi-based agent, who later sold her as a slave.
The agent also went missing. We appeal to the Punjab government to act against such fraudulent travel agents KULWANT SINGH, husband