A man in Haryana’s Yamunanagar city tried to immolate himself during a protest outside the district court on Monday, alleging police inaction on his complaint about his son having been kidnapped from Thailand and taken to Laos, the Hindustan Times reported.

The man, Karamveer, was stopped by pedestrians and journalists, after which the police arrived at the spot.

Karamveer, who hails from the Pratapgarh village in Yamunanagar, claimed that he had sent his son to Thailand for a job at a call centre, PTI reported. However, he alleged that his son was kidnapped from Thailand, and then taken to Laos, where he was forced to work in an illegal business.

The boy’s mother said that after he was taken to Laos, he was forced to hand over his passport to the agents who allegedly kidnapped him. He was allowed to leave only after the family paid over Rs 50,000 to the kidnappers, his parents told mediapersons.

“Despite repeated complaints, the police had failed to act against the local agents responsible for the act,” Karamveer alleged. He reportedly complained to the police on February 11, after which the case was transferred to the Economic Offences Wing.

Sub-inspector Rajat Sharma, the station house officer of HUDA Sector 17 police station, stated that the man was told the investigation was going on and was then allowed to leave, according to the Hindustan Times.

As Scroll found in an extensive series of reports earlier this month, thousands of people, including many Indians, have in recent years been forced to work in cyber crime centres from Southeast Asia, mainly Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos. Such individuals are lured with fake job offers and then forced to work on scamming people back home.

Thousands of people who were forced to work at such “scam compounds” in Myanmar were rescued in the past few weeks as authorities in Thailand launched a crackdown on these establishments.

Read Scroll’s reportage of illegal scam call centres: