73 men from Punjab who were victims of a human smuggling operation, ended up at a Sikh gurdwara in Tehran after a harrowing journey on foot through hundreds of miles on foot. Many of them fell sick on the way and some of them suffered frostbite while walking through the snow in the mountains. Seen in the photo are some of the men in front of the Sikh gurdwara in Tehran. (Photo: Courtesy: Parwinder Singh/Sikh Gurdwara, Tehran)

When 18-year-old Manjit Singh boarded a flight to Damascus, Syria, en route to Greece from New Delhi in April, he believed he was leaving a life of drudgery behind. Eight months later he has nearly lost his arms and feet and is languishing in a Sikh gurdwara in Tehran waiting to be sent back to his hometown of Jalandhar in Punjab.

Singh is one of 73 men from Punjab who were lured by the promise of a good life in Europe by job recruiters who turned out to be human traffickers. The men, pushed back from Greece, Turkey, Lebanon and Syria, somehow ended up in the 50-year-old only gurdwara in Iran. Some of them, including Manjit Singh, walked 1,500 miles for over two months through Iraq to finally reach Tehran. “After we landed in Syria I thought our agents (brokers who promised him a job) would take us to Greece. They did not. Instead they severely mistreated us and made us walk over 1,500 miles through Iraq. On the way I was beaten up by my agents. We had to walk barefeet through snowy mountains and rough terrain. I practically lost my arms and feet,” Singh told News India-Times in a phone interview from Tehran.

Human smuggling from India has become rampant with traffickers charging hundreds of thousands of rupees from unsuspecting job seekers from small towns. Singh said he paid Rs. 200,000 (Over $3,500) to a broker who identified him as ‘Toni.’ Fifteen others, who also came from Jalandhar, paid anywhere between Rs. 400,000 (over $8,000) and Rs. 1 million (Over $22,000) to migrate to Europe without many of them realizing that they were doing so illegally.

Parvinder Singh, a social worker in Tehran who is coordinating their return to India, told News India-Times the men were illegally migrating to Europe, “duped by employment agents who mistreated them, starved them and abandoned them.” The men, Singh said, were deported from Greece, Turkey and Lebanon where they were treated “inhumanely.” Many of them walked barefeet through the snow-covered mountains of Iran before they managed to find their way to Tehran Gurdwara Sahib. Most of the men are between 18 and 25 years of age.

Frostbitten legs of one of the men. (Photo: Courtesy: Parwinder Singh/Sikh Gurdwara, Tehran)

Some of them were so badly frostbitten that their toes had to be amputated. “They all have their horror stories to tell,” Singh said.

He said 10 of the 73 were sent back with the help of donations raised within the 100-odd Sikh families in Tehran. However, he said, it would be impossible for the local Sikh community to take care of the rest. He has issued an appeal to Sikh and Indian organizations in the U.S. and elsewhere to help finance their journey back.

“It is our duty to help anyone in need, especially Indians. But our gurdwara is not equipped to handle so many people at the same time. We have just four toilets and hardly any room to sleep. To look after 70 people, and that too those in such pathetic condition is impossible,” Sardar Rajpal Singh, secretary of the gurdwara, said in an interview. The men have been stranded in Tehran for over two months and have been a strain on the Tehran gurdwara’s resources. The daily cost of hosting the men is $5 to $7 per person, he said. In local Iranian currency that is a considerable sum.

Parwinder Singh, who like Rajpal Singh, was born in Tehran, said while the Indian embassy was trying to help resolve the issue, the action was not quick enough. “As I see it there are two ways do handle this. One is to strictly go by the book, which the embassy is doing, and the other is to treat is a matter of pride and concern for India, which they are not. It is a question of nationalism. Instead of taking such a long time to process their papers for deportation, they can do it in a week, if they choose,” he said.

Rajpal Singh said the gurdwara authorities were grateful to the Iranian government for not “throwing these men into prison.”

“They are acting leniently because of the personal guarantees of the Sikh community and the fact that they respect us. Otherwise these men would have been in jail,” he said.