‘Have learnt harsh lessons of life, won’t go abroad for a job’

HYDERABAD: For 25-year-old Gangadhar Kommu, the experience in Iraq taught him the lesson of his life-time.

“From now on, I will be happy with whatever I earn in our country. I’d never again think of going abroad for a job,” Kommu told HT as he boarded the state transport bus to his home Dharmapuri, 220 kms north of Hyderabad .Facilities like transportation and food were arranged for the men by the Telangana government.

Stranded for about two weeks amidst gun-fire and hunger at Kirkuk in the country, Kommu is among the 40 men from the Karimnagar district in Telangana who landed at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport on Saturday.

Thirty six others from various districts of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh were also brought by the special Air India flight from Erbil in Iraq that dropped the 46 nurses from Kerala at Kochi airport earlier that day.

Kommu has no complaints against the ISIS. Instead, he vents his anger on job-agents that deceived him and the Indian Embassy officials that he says were unresponsive to their plight for a fortnight.

Kommu, an M.Com, went to Iraq three months back with a promise of a good job. But after paying the agents ` 1.5 lakh and landing in Iraq, Kommu realized he was given a travel visa of only 15 days and a menial job in a cool-drinks factory at Kirkuk.

“I was promised a job of systems operator and a salary of 700-800$ a month. But there was neither regular salary nor decent working conditions,” he said.

Kommu and others first heard gunfire on June 11 and lived in fear since then, with no food or water most of the time. “The factory people were least bothered about us and so were embassy officials,” he said.

Kommu says that if not for the nurses who were also stranded and brought to Erbil, they might not have seen home again.