Kashmiri youths promised Indigo jobs, duped

A 22-year-old unemployed Kashmiri youth was among dozens  allegedly duped by a gang posing as senior officials of the Indigo Airlines.

Not only did the victims lose their money, they were also fooled into travelling to Delhi on the pretext of appearing for interviews for a purported job as ground staff or cabin crew at Delhi’s domestic airport.

The victims realised they were being taken for a ride only on Tuesday, five days after they arrived in Delhi to appear for the job interviews. The victims caught two members of the gang following a brief scuffle and handed them over to the police.

The victims alleged that they are receiving death threats from other gang members located in Kashmir. Police said they are interrogating the nabbed suspects and efforts are on to arrest other members of the syndicate. A case in this connection has been registered at Jama Masjid police station .

“We investigated and found that neither was the two suspects employed by the Indigo Airlines, nor did the airlines authorise the named consultancy company (to recruit anyone on their behalf). It was all a fraud by the gang,” a police officer told Deccan Herald.

The complainant Amir Mustaq, pursuing Post-graduation in Mathematics from Anantnag in Kashmir, had come across the job advertisement on OLX website in late January this year. The advertisement allegedly appeared in the name of one ‘Peace Carrier Consultancy & Job Assistance’. The salary promised was Rs 17,000 per month.

Mustaq called the given  phone number upon which he was directed to deposit Rs 1,000 as registration fee at a local office in Anantnag. “A man named Yawar Naik told me that a head representative of the airlines would interview me. Two days later, I gave a telephonic interview to someone named Amir Shora,” Mustaq alleged.

He receive a call the next day informing him that he was selected as a ground staff and would be required to report for job in Delhi soon. However, that date did not arrive soon and after frequent calls to the contacts, he was finally told to arrive in Delhi by March 11.

Mustaq arrived with 15 other Kashmiri youths in Delhi and took accommodation in Jama Masjid area. Once they reached Delhi, they allegedly came across three dozen more candidates waiting for the same job. The youths were told they would have to go through another round of interview. However, that interview never took place as it kept getting postponed.

“Our suspicion arose on March 16 when finally we were informed that officials would interview us at our hotel room. When two persons posing as airlines officials met us at the hotel, we demanded to see their identity cards,” said Mustaq.

When the duo refused to present any identity proof claiming they were new to the job, the candidates tried to restrain them upon which they were allegedly manhandled.
But the two were soon overpowered and handed over to police.