Three Indian men, who went missing in Iran, rescued
The three Indian nationals who had gone missing in Iran have been rescued, said the Iranian Embassy in New Delhi on Tuesday.
'Local media in Iran say police have found and released three Indian men who had gone missing in Iran,' the embassy said on X.
The three men from Punjab, who were offered work and thought that they were travelling to Australia in April, had ended up in Iran instead and went missing. Their families had alleged that they were abducted by a network of agents from Pakistan, who demanded a ransom of Rs 18 lakh each.
On May 28, the Indian Embassy in Tehran had said it had taken up the matter strongly with the Iranian authorities and requested that the missing men be traced urgently.
The three men were Amritpal Singh from Hoshiarpur, Hushanpreet Singh from Sangrur, and Jaspal Singh from Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar.
Three missing Indian citizens freed by Tehran police
Local media in Iran say police have found and released three Indian men who had gone missing in Iran. https://t.co/YAkirkKRHg
— Iran in India (@Iran_in_India) June 3, 2025
All of them were in contact with their families till May 17. Jaspal's brother Ashok Kumar had said that he was taken to Dubai on April 1 and kept there for a month. When Amritpal and Hushanpreet also arrived in Dubai on April 25, all three of them were taken to Tehran on May 1, he had said.
Kumar had added that the three men were then taken to a place where they were told to strip. 'They then made video calls to us and told us that they were kidnapped and were asked to transfer Rs 18 lakh each to bank accounts in Pakistan,' he had said.
Amritpal's mother, Gurdip Kaur, had said in a police complaint that her son had been promised work in Australia by two travel agents named Dheeraj Atwal and his brother Kamal Atwal.
The police alleged that the accused men took Rs 18 lakh from Amritpal and offered to arrange for him to travel to Australia via Iran through a ' donkey route ' – a long, roundabout journey designed to dodge border controls.
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