Returning home to Phillaur three months after being duped into going to Saudi Arabia, a Punjab man on Monday said being reunited with his family was like my second birth.
Suresh Tiwari returned home on Sunday after what he describes as an ordeal at the farm of a sheikh. He said he got help from the Indian mission in that country.
However, there was no immediate official comment on the circumstances of his return or on his allegations of ill-treatment in Saudi Arabia.
On Monday, his father Ram Tiwari and brother Sunil Tiwari distributed ladoos as neighbours thronged their house.
The 25-year-old alleged that a travel agent duped him into going to Saudi Arabia in 2016 with the promise of a job there.
But after reaching there, I was made to work on the farm of a Sheikh, he said.
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The work was so hard and wages so meagre that a Jharkhand youth committed suicide by setting himself ablaze, he alleged.
Tiwari said after 18 months, he asked his employer to let him to go back home to get married.
My woes began then. I was harassed and not paid a penny for six months, he alleged.
He then contacted his family and they wrote to the Indian embassy.
He named two Indian embassy officials and two people from Punjab living in Saudi Arabia, saying they ensured his return home.
Tiwari alleged that several Indian youths, mostly from Punjab, are stuck in Saudi Arabia and there is little hope of their return.
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