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Telangana to Malaysia jail: How Bhaskar paid the price for a better life

Siasat | May 26, 2025 3:39 AM CST

Hyderabad: In December last year, six men from Telangana ended up in a prison in Melaka city of Malaysia on charges of manufacturing firearms, staying illegally without a passport or visa, drug abuse and use of alcohol.

One of the jailed men, Talari Bhaskar, is a Dalit from Nirmal district. But he is an educated man. And so is his wife. ” I had to discontinue my final year of Bachelor of Arts (BA) after clearing all the subjects in the first two years. My wife is a graduate with a Bachelor’s in Education (BEd), but we could not afford the coaching tuition fees for the district selection committee (DSC) competitive exams for teachers’ recruitment due to financial constraints. We could not apply for government jobs,” he said.

Now married and a father of two little children, Bhaskar is a landless worker. So, when the offer to work abroad came, he grabbed it.

A better future for his two children was all that Bhaskar imagined.

Job in Malaysia

Speaking to Siasat.com, Bhaskar narrated how he ended up in one of the worst jails in Malaysia.

“In 2023, I came across a job opportunity in Malaysia. I paid Rs 75,000 to an acquaintance who got me a tourist visa,” he recalls.

Soon after landing in Malaysia, Bhaskar was employed as a construction worker, though holding a tourist visa. “I worked for the first three months and earned Rs 20,000 monthly. Then the work stopped and I was jobless,” he says.

Jailed and hopeless

Things brightened for Bhaskar after he came across a few men from his village working in an aluminium scrap factory in Melaka under a Chinese employer. Next eight months, he worked in the factory and earned Rs 25,000 as monthly wages. He got accommodated at his friends’ room provided by the employer.

There were around 25 workers from different nationalities working in that company.

Adjacent to the factory, there was another company, owned by a Chinese man, that recycled cartridges of bullets made of brass, copper and other metals. “My colleagues and I never ventured into that area. We diligently did our work and were happy getting the money,” Bhaskar said.

Everything was going fine for Bhaskar. He was able to send money home and life was running smoothly, until October 23, 2024, when the Crime Investigation Department (CID) sleuths of Melaka raided the factory and arrested 22 workers under various charges. There were six Indians (all from Telangana), two Pakistanis, four Bangladeshis, nine Chinese, and one each from Indonesia and Myanmar.

Bhaskar was one of the 22 arrestees.

“The Chinese workers bribed the officials and got away. Since we did not have passports and were on a tourist visa, the officials booked us under criminal charges and immigration fraud. Three of us were sentenced to 10 months in prison, but in Malaysia, that translated to actually serving 6 months and 20 days,” Bhaskar said.

With the Chinese company bailing out its workers and with no salary in hand, he found himself in jail, feeling completely hopeless. Recounting his days, an emotional Bhaskar told Siasat.com, “The jail authorities were cold and apathetic. We would go hungry for days. They would tempt us with cooked meals and demanded money if we requested food. Sometimes, they would throw leftovers but wouldn’t feed us. We were treated inhumanely.”

During their routine court appearances, Bhaskar and his friends finally borrowed a phone from other accused from India who were being brought to the court for their first hearing, and called their families in India to inform them about their situation.

Political intervention and freedom at last

The family members of the five accused who hailed from the same village Lingapur, approached Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader Bhukya Johnson Naik through the party workers and a BRS leader named Ranjith in the village.

On March 5, Johnson Naik flew to Malaysia and met Bhaskar and others from Telangana. The BRS leader assured them they would soon be released and reunited with their family.

Johnson Naik’s friends, Anil and Ramesh, who worked in Malaysia, took care of the victims’ legal and personal needs, including hiring a lawyer to represent the arrested workers in court.

The day finally arrived for Bhaskar. He and two others, Shankar and Rajeshwar, tasted freedom for the first time in months, but only after paying a fine of about 10,000 Ringgist (Rs 2 lakh approximately).

However, three others, Naresh Kumar, Srinivas, and Ravinder Yemunuri, are still languishing in jail. Explaining why he wasn’t convicted in the immigration case, Bhaskar says, “During the raid, CID police took away all our passports. When they asked me for mine, I told them my agent had taken it. After my release, the company driver brought it and handed it over to me.”

Bhaskar, Shankar and Rajeshwar were taken to a hospital for a medical checkup. His blood pressure was abnormally high. “The doctor told me that I was lucky not to have suffered a brain stroke while in jail,” he told Siasat.com.

On May 21, Bhaskar, Shankar and Rajeshwar were finally reunited with their families.

Ground reality is different

Successive governments have claimed that Telangana’s per capita income is rising and that reverse migration is taking place. But Bhaskar’s case tells a different story.

Bhaskar is a Dalit, and the remaining five men from Telangana who were arrested with him belong to Munnuru Kapu (BC) caste. While ‘Kapu‘ traditionally refers to landlords in Telangana, all five men are landless. So when the prospect of working abroad came, they did not think twice.

It’s also important to note that neither the BRS government, which promised a Gulf Board with a special fund in 2014, nor the Congress government that came to power in 2023, has fulfilled that promise.

Telangana’s NRI policy

On April 10, the Telangana government constituted an ‘NRI advisory committee’ with former Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer and Congress’ NRI cell president BM Vinod Kumar as its chairperson. The committee comprises MLAs, social activists, NRI activists and experts in the domain.

The committee has been given the mandate of studying the issues connected with Gulf migrant workers’ welfare and to prepare a comprehensive NRI policy within two years.

The government order focuses on “mitigating the hardships of Gulf migrants and implementing welfare measures for people from Telangana working in Gulf countries, including Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.”

However, challenges faced by emigrants are not limited to the Gulf. Recent cases have emerged of Indians being trapped and tortured by Chinese cybercriminals in countries like Indonesia and Mongolia.

In addition, protectionist policies introduced by former US President Donald Trump created new hurdles for migrants and immigrants. Many are returning to their home countries, with or without financial security.

‘Emigrant workers’ issues is priority,’ says govt official

This raises an important question: Will Telangana’s NRI policy take a broader approach to include all migration-related issues faced by its people worldwide, or remain limited to the Gulf region?

To which, vice-chairperson of the NRI advisory committee, M Bheem Reddy, replied, “When chief minister Revanth Reddy talked about Telangana’s NRI policy, he clearly mentioned it would include Gulf and overseas workers. When we say workers, it should be clear we are talking about those in the lowest rung of the workforce.”

“The Congress government has set up a special Pravasi (NRI) grievance redressal counter. Families of the emigrant victims can approach with their issues every Tuesday and Friday. Apart from this, the government provided Rs 5 lakh ex gratia for the families of Gulf emigrants. It is being disbursed in phases,” Reddy told Siasat.com.