By IANS,
Kuala Lumpur : A Malaysian Indian yoga instructor is looking for sponsors to travel to the Peruvian capital Lima to meet his former employee, who is critically ill in a jail after apparently being caught with cocaine in her luggage.
Kalai Kumar has said he wants to visit Lima to rescue Punitha after Peruvian authorities contacted him to inform that the 50-year-old was seriously sick in jail.
Malaysia’s foreign office said Tuesday its mission in Lima was in touch with Punitha, reported the New Straits Times.
An official said they had no information if Punitha had been convicted of a drug offence or if she was being held on remand at the Santa Monica prison in Lima.
The official said Punitha was arrested on July 8 and Malaysian officials had met the woman in prison several times.
“We last saw her about a month ago and she looked fine.”
Now, Kumar hopes to arrange legal assistance for Punitha and has urged her family members, whom she left nine years ago, to help in the effort.
According to Kumar, Punitha left for Dublin, Ireland, in 2005 where she worked as a maid for about a year.
“She returned to Malaysia and worked with me for several months before she packed her bags and said she was going to find a job in Europe.
“The last I spoke to her was in August 2006 when she called me from Spain to say she had met and fallen in love with a Nigerian and that they were going to get married,” he was quoted as saying.
The Malaysian Government suspects that Punitha is one of the many cases of women being used as drug carriers by international crime syndicates.
There are 13 other Malaysians, including 10 women, in Peruvian jails, most of them suspected of having brought in drugs.