The scars of the traumatic sojourn to the land of riches, in this case, Libya are still afresh on the minds of these innocent Punjabi labourers.

Although, they had gone on a two-year contract but following the unexpected events and maltreatment by the company they returned home within seven months.

They consider themselves lucky to have got away from Tripoli. Still worst is the plight of many more Punjabis and immigrant labourers from other parts of the country who are longing to come back but cannot.

``For three months, I was in hospital at Tripoli after a bullet hit me in the arm. Nobody from the company came to visit me'', says Baldev Raj, who hails from Kamam village of Nawanshahar district. His arm has been rendered useless as he is unable to lift anything.

Not only that, the police in Tripoli thrashed him severely after he was hit by bullet. ``I begged for food from the neighbouring Libyans to survive,'' he adds.

Baldev was one of the 16 labourers, who were injured in a police firing. The police fired at the agitating labourers who were protesting against low wages and were demanding compensation for the family of a labourer who had died after a fall. Two persons were killed in the firing, which took place in October last year.

Infact, such was the terror exercised by the construction company managers in Tripoli that they forced Baldev Raj on a gun point to tell his parents back home in Punjab that he was all right. ``I followed accordingly,'' he said, adding that he later wrote a letter to them about the real state of affairs.

Bhag Ram from Landran village of Jalandhar said he was beaten up by the men from the construction company as he had gone to the embassy office in Tripoli to deliver a fax regarding the plight of immigrant labourers.

``I was picked up from near the embassy office and beaten up by the men from company.'' The beating has left him partially deaf. He said two other persons who had gone with him, Jarnail Singh and Pardeep from Orissa, were also beaten up.

Both claimed that the SSB Company Private Limited based in Delhi had charged Rs 45,000 each from them to be sent to Libya. They said there were still around 2,000 Indian labourers working for the company in Tripoli.

Meanwhile, the Indian embassy in Tripoli was informed by the NRI Welfare Committee, Jalandhar that it was pursuing the cases of 10 Indian labourers who were currently in a Tripoli jail.

The embassy has informed that it had written to the consular department of the Libyan government to provide consular access to the representatives of the embassy to enable them to meet the arrested workers and inquire about their welfare.

As per the Libyan laws, the foreign missions are not allowed to get in touch directly with prisoners or detainees.

The embassy has also written to the Libyan foreign office to sympathetically consider the cases against the labourers lodged for agitating.

Malkit Singh, another labourers hailing from Jalandhar, returned to his native place after staying without food for five days in Libya.