Chandigarh, June 2 (IANS) Seven women and one boy from Punjab were reunited with their families, as they landed at Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi Friday.
With them, the total number of rescued women in two weeks rose to 24 under the initiative Mission Hope run by Punjab AAP Rajya Sabha member, Vikram Sahney.
He said the Mission Hope, which was launched last month, is achieving great success and they are committed to bringing every stranded Punjabi girl from Oman.
"Our team is working on a war-footing and have visited Oman twice to liaise with all stakeholders to expedite the rescue operation as soon as possible," he said.
Sahney added he has hired a prestigious immigration law firm in Oman, which is fighting the legal battle to accelerate the process of taking these girls back home.
"Our lawyers are connecting with the sponsors and agents of these women and paying them the requisite penalties to get all the necessary documents for these girls to travel back home."
Sahney informed that the women who came on Saturday are from Jalandhar, Shahkot, Phillaur, Jagraon, Patti, Tarn Taran, Nakodar and Bathinda.
They were stranded after being lured by unscrupulous agents and so-called manpower consultants to go to Oman on false pretexts of employment there.
While one boy from Jalandhar, who was also trapped and was working as a sevadar in a local gurdwara in Muscat, was rescued by paying an overstay penalty.
Sahney, who is also the International President of World Punjabi Organisation, is bearing all the cost of penalties which sponsors are demanding to cancel the unreasonable contracts of these women, their air tickets, etc.
Akso Sahney runs a community kitchen at the shelter home where women from different parts of India are seeking refuge in Muscat.
Sahney said all seven women who were rescued will go to their nearest police stations and file FIRs against their respective agents who duped them and sent them to Oman by making false promises.
The matter came to light on April 18, when a complaint was lodged at Hauz Khas police station by a resident of Haridwar regarding cheating wherein the complainant stated that on March 21, he came to AIIMS hospital for treatment of his daughter and met a woman wearing coat showing her to be a junior resident.
In Sadulshahar, the NIA team is interrogating a few people connected to the gangsters. Those detained are being interrogated in closed rooms. The team has also reached the house of history-sheeter Vikram Laden - on the list of most wanted criminals - in Behror (Alwar).
Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's state visit to the US on June 22, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will be visiting the country for a week at the end of this month during which he will attend several programmes. According to party sources, Rahul Gandhi is slated leave for the US on May 30 or 31 and will visit California, Washington and New York.
The Punjab Vigilance Bureau on Tuesday arrested Kushaldeep Singh Dhillon, the former MLA from Faridkot, for possession of assets disproportionate to known sources of income. A spokesperson for the bureau said a corruption case has been registered him along with Gursewak Singh and Rajwinder Singh.
The CBI has alleged in its FIR filed against former Mumbai Zone Narcotics Control Bureau head Sameer Wankhede in the Aryan Khan drug seizure case, that the latter concealed information regarding his foreign trips and buying expensive watches. The FIR has been accessed by IANS in which the CBI has made shocking allegations.
A passenger was arrested at the Amritsar airport for allegedly molesting an air hostess on board a flight from Dubai in an inebriated state, police said on Monday. Rajinder Singh, who belongs to Kotli village in Jalandhar, got into a heated argument with the air hostess and allegedly molested her, the police said.
