Trafficked and tortured in Cambodia, a Telangana man seeks to save himself

Hyderabad: A young man from Mahabubabad district of Telangana has sent a distress message to his family asking them to rescue him from Cambodia. This comes just a fortnight after the Visakhapatnam police uncovered a human trafficking ring operating from Cambodia and rescued 15 youths from Andhra Pradesh.

Prakash, a resident of Kothapet village in Bayyaram mandal in Mahabubabad district, claimed he was approached by a job consultancy firm in Hyderabad to go to Australia for work. Instead, he was trafficked to Cambodia and forced to work for cybercrime syndicates. He said he was brutally tortured.

Prakash took a selfie video and sent it via Whatsapp to his parents in Mahabubabad. He also said his employers denied him food and tortured him by giving him electric shocks. The family members in Telangana informed the local police and sought help to bring back Prakash.

In mid-May, Vizag Police Commissioner Ravi Shankar Ayyanar, with the help of Indian embassy officials, rescued around 15 Cambodian youths belonging to Vizag and other surrounding areas. Around 115 individuals from Andhra Pradesh fell into the hands of traffickers from Cambodia. The guards subjected the young Indians to torture, including being locked in a dark room and occasionally beaten with a baseball bat because of their poor performance.

In Cambodia, handlers served only one meal a day to trafficked Indian youth, and sometimes they were left on empty stomachs for days for “underperforming” in cyber fraud, Ravi Shankar said.