India Culture, Business, Sports and Food. Get all the buzz in India now

Festival Thirty five Indian Pilgrims who were on one month visiting visa, have gone missing during their stopover in New Zealand capital en route to Sydney where they were to attend the week long Catholic Church World Youth day festival that started on Monday. According to the Auckland labor department officials all the missing 35 persons were a part of the group of 220 Indian pilgrims. According to Radio New Zealand the pilgrims absconded at various times even leaving their passport and other important documents behind. Pope Benedict XVI, 81, is scheduled to join the festival on Thursday and to see him was one of their motifs.

Scam The way, they have gone missing appears to be an immigrations scam. It is being also said that some of the missing people had paid Rs. 500,000 to travel agents in India to facilitate their entry in the country and the agents had also misguided them that they can stay there after the entry of the group of the Catholic pilgrims into the country. Meanwhile Catholic Church has denied it’s any kind of linkage with the scam. It is an unexpected development that has left stunned whoever is related to the pilgrimage.

Menace This is only a tip of the iceberg. Hundreds of Asians migrate to European countries every year by illegal means. In recent years we have seen many incidents in which Asians were caught without legal documents or entering the European countries by illegal means. In one of such attempt hundreds of Indian, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis had died when their boat in which they were being smuggled had capsized in Malta after the alleged crew had abandoned them. Thousands of Indians are lying in jails in various countries who have been duped by the travel agents.

Reasons People migrate to the western countries in search of better job and living conditions by using every kind of means and sometimes their obsession leads them nowhere. For whole of the problem mostly the governments of these Asian countries are responsible. Governments of these countries have failed on every front. Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal have almost failed states as for as economy is concerned. Instead of working for the development of their country political leaders have remained obsessed only with their political games. It is the economic development that can stop the trend. Steps should also be taken against the travel agents who misguide the people.