13 Indians held hostage in Myanmar rescued; six people, including three Malayalis, arrested by police

NEW DELHI: Indian embassies in Myanmar and Thailand have rescued 13 Indian IT professionals who were kidnapped to a secluded area in Myawaddy, Myanmar, under the guise of giving IT jobs. All 13 are natives of Tamil Nadu. They have now reached New Delhi. Meanwhile, the Thailand police have arrested six people, including three Malayalis, for violating visa regulations. They were arrested after an armed group dumped them in front of the police station at Myawaddy.

The arrested Malayalis are Varkala native Nidhish Babu, Alappuzha Sinaj Saleem and Muhammad Ijaz. The other three are from Tamil Nadu. The Indian Embassy is making desperate efforts to rescue them.

It may be noted that some fraudulent IT companies engaged in digital scamming and crypto frauds 'recruited' Indian nationals from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and some other states using sub-agents.

The Ministry of External External had recently said in a release, "The workers are lured with social media advertisements of highly lucrative data entry jobs in Thailand. These workers are then illegally taken to the Myawaddy area of Myanmar, which is difficult to access due to the local security situation."