Kalam seeks answers for Indian workers abroad

New Delhi, Nov 22 (UNI) President A P J Abdul Kalam this evening set the problems of Indians working abroad before a gathering of law experts from around the world.

Inaugurating an International Seminar on 'Criminal Justice System under Stress: Transnational Perspective,' Kalam urged participants to help find ways to deal with crimes against Indians working overseas.

The conference to commemorate an Indian Law Institute completing 50 years is being attended by experts from India and abroad, including chief justices, judges and lawyers and law scholars.

A highlight of the event presided over by Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal was Kalam administering an oath of ''righteousness'' and ''honest life'' to young law students, which drew an all round applause.

Among those present were the Chief Justices of England and Wales, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Singapore and Canada.

Those who spoke on the occasion included Law and Justice Minister Hans Raj Bhardwaj, seniormost Supreme Court Judge K G Balakrishnan and Attorney General Milon K Banerjee.

President Kalam said he has got ''e-mails and messages from our citizens who have gone to various countries for employment, business and trade.'' He said a nexus between agents and prospective employers is putting ''innocent citizens'' to ''legal and financial harassment without being heard in any Court of Justice.'' The problems include variance in promised and actual jobs, variance in payment and the assignment of ''highly manual, unsafe, degrading'' type of work ''and implication in false fabricated cases in the foreign land,'' he said.

He urged experts ''to discuss the methodology and suggest suitable regulatory control and monitoring mechanism which will enable safeguarding the interests of Indian citizens working in different parts of the world.'' UNI MJ SAM MIR RAI2249