Urging the state police to crackdown on fake agents who dupe local youngsters by promising them jobs abroad, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Friday said that such rampant attempts at cheating and human trafficking needed to be curbed at the earliest.
"We feel that human trafficking means girls, ladies are brought from different states and countries for prostitution and begging, but we do not note that our Goans are (fraudulently) taken to foreign countries and even this is human trafficking," Sawant told reporters on Friday.
"Eight days back around eight youth came to my office complaining that one agent had taken Rs 2.5 lakh from them for processing passports and visas... Two of them were sent aboard and they told these other youth not to come abroad because they are being harassed," the Chief Minister said adding that the agent has duped all of them.
The agent, Sawant said, was arrested after the chief minister's office was informed about the incident.
"Many are taken abroad on the pretext of giving jobs. Do we see this event as human trafficking? We need to see it as human trafficking. Then such agents again start such a business and then the new people succumb to this," Sawant said.
"Goans should be aware of such things and the police should act on such agents if they advertise again. Crores of rupees are lost by Goan youths like this," the Chief Minister also said.