By G Saravanan
Published in The New Indian Express, Chennai on November 7, 2010:
Chennai, Nov 6: AFTER intervention from different quarters including the Indian Mission in Tripoli, about 22 construction labourers (out of 80) who went to Libya a few months ago (from Tamil Nadu) and were languishing as bonded labourers, have returned to the state on Saturday.
They have appealed the to Chief Minister M Karunanidhi to take immediate steps to rescue the remaining 67 men (58 from TN and nine from Punjab) who went to Libya with high -fly ing dreams from Punjab and districts like Ramanathapuram, Sivaganga, Tirunelveli, Nagapattinam and Chennai.
It may be noted that ‘Express’ had carried a detailed news item about the plight of the Tamil Nadu labourers at two Libyan camps under strained conditions in the first week of the September.
After the Express report on these labourers, pressure was exerted on Libyan authorities as well as on the Indian High Commission at Tripoli by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to take up rescue mission
immediately.
Speaking to Express after landing in the city on Saturday morning, Kalappan Munusamy, one of the (22) TN labourers, said. “Based on strong efforts by Indian Mission in Tripoli, we the 22 labourers stayed at the Mottai Brak labour camp near Sabha City in Libya have returned to our motherland on Saturday."
It was not an easy journey to all of them. After dillydallying for days, the Libyan company that has hired these Indian labourers finally agreed to cancel their visas thus enabling their return journey to India.
On November 2, they began their homebound journey from Tripoli and as a transit point, stayed at Amman (Jordan) before taking the connecting flight to Mumbai on November 3.
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