Rajesh, an ECG technician from Visakhapatnam, was on cloud nine as he boarded a plane to Thailand to work as a data entry operator. Back in India, the 31-year-old father’s Rs 20,000 salary wasn’t enough to sustain his growing family, and the Rs 70,000 paycheque he was promised was a lifeline. But as soon as he checked into his hotel, everything unravelled. A man grabbed him from behind, tied his arms, and muffled his screams with a handkerchief. When he woke up, he was in a rebel-controlled part of Myanmar.
Rajesh did have a new job, but it was far from what he had imagined. He had been sold to a scam call centre, forced to con other Indians online.
“Save me, father, save me,” he cried over the phone two days after he was allegedly kidnapped in February this year. This was the last time his family heard from him. Rajesh has been beaten, tortured, starved, and kept in solitary confinement, according to his family members and police. He has become a “cyber-slave”.
