NorthEast youths in prison for weeks despite bail

GREATER NOIDA: It’s been more than three weeks since a local court granted bail to 126 youths who were arrested on December 21 last year for working in sham call centres that allegedly cheated scores people in the US.
But several of them, who are originally from Manipur and Nagaland and had come to Noida looking for jobs, are still languishing in Greater Noida’s Luksar jail because their sureties have not been paid. Among them are eight women. The court collectively granted bail to all 126 accused on January 31, one of their lawyers Manoj Bhati said. However, two persons have to come forward with sureties for each before release orders can be issued by jail authorities. “Most of the local youths have been released but those from Manipur and Nagaland have not been able to get out of jail as their sureties are yet to be submitted before court. Every accused has to provide two sureties, according to the bail bond. Since not many relatives and friends of these youths are in the city, they are still in Luksar jail,” Bhati added.

After their plight came to light, the special commissioner of Delhi Police wrote a Facebook post, seeking help for the youths, especially the women. Robin Hibu, an IPS officer who is from Arunachal Pradesh, wrote in his post, “…lawyers are fighting these cases in courts but court wants bailers from (the) northeast only. We tried to contact their parents in the hills but either they are too poor or illiterate or could not due to remoteness and lack of means/connectivity there. They are helpless and ignorant. In case any northeast people in Pune and Noida, please volunteer as bailers so that these girls can at least come out of custody. It’s heart wrenching to see our girls in jails/custody, abandoned by the society.”

On Monday, Hibu told TOI, “We got some of the youths released from jail today.” Thomas Thailu, officer on special duty, Nagaland House, said efforts were on to get the youths out of jail. “We are trying to get their documents prepared and expect some to be out of jail within a day or two.

However, we are not sure how many of them are still in jail as of now,” he said. According to Sanjay Sharma, another lawyer looking into the case for some of the accused, of the 36 youths from Manipur and Nagaland booked in the case, 10 have come out. “The latest information we have received is that only one woman got surety. They do not have many contacts here in NCR and verification of persons providing sureties is being carried out strictly,” he said, adding even some local youths were finding it difficult to get out of jail due to the rigorous checking.

Noida began a crackdown on call centres after the teams from the FBI and Canadian law enforcement met the police commissioner and flagged the threat from bogus call centres operating from the city, which were cheating hundreds of people in those countries.