Job aspirants held captive, 7 rescued

Kochi: City police on Friday rescued seven people, who were held captive in a rented building at Cheranelloor, after bringing them to Kochi promising jobs in Canada.Police rescued them from a building on Mundyathu Road near Cheranelloor signal based on confidential information they received.

When the police found them, all victims were in a weak condition.

Those rescued are from Haryana, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka, police said. All the victims had completed education only till Class VIII.There are 11 accused who took around Rs 30 lakh from each job aspirant after convincing them that they would be given jobs in Canada, police said. The agreement with them was that everyone would be taken to Canada.

The accused instead brought everyone to the rented house in Cheranelloor and held them captive.Police said the accused set up boards with pictures of places in Canada in the background and coerced the aspirants into making videos saying they reached Canada. They would send these videos to the aspirants’ relatives in their hometowns and obtain money, said officials.After one of the captives escaped from the rented house, the accused fled with the money they received.

Subsequently, during investigation, police arrested Abdul Raheem, a native of Siliguri in West Bengal, from Ernakulam South railway station area. At the time of arrest, police recovered the victims’ mobile phones, passports and nearly Rs 1 lakh from Raheem. He was produced in court and remanded. Police are on the lookout for the other accused.Police have received information that the accused had carried out such frauds in other states too.

Cheranelloor police are conducting an investigation in the matter along with officers in other states.As per Kochi city’s Ernakulam central ACP Premanandakrishnan’s directives, the accused was caught under the leadership of Cheranelloor police station Inspector Jayasankar. SI Sunil G, Chaithanya, Sabu, ASI Naseer, Manoj, SCPO Thomas George, Bimal and Joseph were part of the team.