Jan 9: Nineteen Nepalis, including five Gorkhali people, have been held hostage in Malaysia for eight days. The youths who arrived in Malaysia on September 8 to work in the supplier company from Sanepa's search requirement manpower are stranded.

Thakur Regmi of Bungkot, Gorkha among the hostages, complained that the owner of the company used to beat him up during work and subjected him to extreme physical torture.

The hostages are Thakur Regmi of Shahid Lakhan Rural Municipality-6 of Gorkha, Kamal Shrestha of 7, Bishnu Prasad Dhakal of Bhimsen Thapa Rural Municipality-7, Tikaram Gotame, Sujan Gotame. They hope that if the local municipality and district administration office take the initiative for rescue, they will be able to return Nepal

Apart from five from Gorkha, there are one each from Udayapur, Saptari, Bhojpur and Baitadi, seven from Makwanpur, and three from Rautahat. The youths who have been held hostage are protesting on social media demanding their immediate release.

Baburam Bastola, one of the hostages, said that the company did not even give them a month's salary when they arrived in Malaysia on September 8. "The company owner beat us every day. We came here to earn money to take care of our children. We are not here to get physical and mental torture," he said.

"The torture did not stop, we also told the company in Nepal, but there was no hearing. On the contrary, we were kicked out of the company and held hostage in a room on the third floor in a place called Keylang,” he said.

Similarly, he also said that they had informed the Nepali Embassy in Malaysia about the behavior and fraud by the owner of the company and a person named Tek Bahadur Karki came, however, apart from the assurance, the complaint was not heard.

Bastola said that even though the company in Nepal was informed about the problem and the agent Mohammad Juden came and said that he would immediately give the job elsewhere or send him to Nepal, this did not happen.

"On the first day, there were 28 people, now nine people have been taken to the hotel elsewhere, 21 of us are stranded at present," he said.

After a Nepali youth was brutally beaten by the owner of the company, the other Nepali youths complained and later they were all fired from the company. The youth are appealing through social media to bring the 19 people who are together now to Nepal immediately.

"We have suffered a lot, everyone has told us to go to Nepal instead of working here under torture," Bastola said in a video interview, "There is no food, no place to sleep, how long can we endure this pain?"

While Republica tried to contact the company’s representative on the telephone number on the website to inquire about this, all numbers were out of service.