NEW DELHI, May 4: India on Tuesday expressed concern over the alleged abuse of Indian workers by the US Army in Iraq, after some of the men escaped to narrate their harrowing tales of slavery.
The Indian foreign ministry said it was concerned by "the disturbing reports about the conditions in which some Indian nationals are being forced to work for contractors active in Iraq".
A foreign ministry spokesman said India had asked the US embassy in New Delhi to furnish more information about the hapless Indians and also "about the accounts that Indians who wished to leave were unable to do so, and were being compelled to continue to remain in Iraq against their will".
The Indian Express reported the "harrowing tale of deceit, anguish and escape of four Keralites"from the US military after going through a nine-month-long ordeal in a US camp as slaves".
Two brothers among them _ Hameed and Shajahan of Velichakkala village _ while narrating their tale, said they were among 20 men from the southern state of Kerala who escaped from the camp run by US soldiers near Mosul.
"Memories of those nine months _ the deafening sounds of bombs and shell attacks and menial treatment by gun-toting US soldiers _ will always haunt me," Mr Hameed said. They said that in the first four months there they were not allowed to telephone or write home.
Though they were told that Rs 12,000 would be sent to their home every month, not a single dollar was paid to them. With life becoming unbearable and any risk worth taking, they escaped from the camp last month and reached Baghdad with the help of a truck driver. From Baghdad they went to Fallujah and then to Jordan and Doha before reaching Mumbai on April 28.
