Dubai: Four Indian women who were tricked into working as bar dancers flew back to home on Friday after being rescued by Dubai Police following a tip-off from the Indian consulate.
The four women, from Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, were deluded into believing that they will be working for an event management company. However, when they reached Dubai, their employer locked them in a room and were then forced to work in a dance bar and solicit customers, Consul General of India to Dubai, Vipul, told Gulf News.
According to reports, one of the women managed to send an SOS to her family back home via WhatsApp.
As soon as the message was brought to the attention of Vellamvelly Muraleedharan, India's Minister of State for External Affairs, he alerted the consulate, which then informed Dubai Police.
Vipul said he was thankful to Dubai Police for their swift response to rescue the four women, all in their twenties.
After being rescued the women were taken to our shelter. Today we put them in a plane bound for Kozhikode, he was quoted as saying by the daily.
The Consul General said he will write to the Tamil Nadu government, seeking firm action against the agent who sent the women to Dubai.
The Indian mission in Dubai has repeatedly urged jobseekers to check their visa status with the Pravasi Bhartaiya Sahayta Kendra (PBSK) earlier known as Indian Workers' Resource Centre.
Jobseekers can also verify their visa status on the Amer website before travelling to the UAE.
The case follows a similar incident last year when another group of women were rescued from a dance bar by Dubai Police at the behest of the Indian consulate. Among them was a 21-year-old from Hyderabad who was lured to Dubai on the pretext that she would be getting a job in a jewellery store only to end up working in a dance bar.
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ISLAMABAD: At least two more cases of poliovirus were reported in Pakistan, taking the number of infections to 52 so far this year, a report said on Friday.
“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health has confirmed the detection of two more wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases in Pakistan," an official statement said.
The fresh infections — a boy and a girl — were reported from the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
“Genetic sequencing of the samples collected from the children is underway," the statement read. Dera Ismail Khan, one of the seven polio-endemic districts of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has reported five polio cases so far this year.
Of the 52 cases in the country this year, 24 are from Balochistan, 13 from Sindh, 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.
There is no cure for polio. Only multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five can keep them protected.