A 55-year-old woman who was allegedly sold and tortured in Saudi Arabia has returned to India.

Sukhwant Kaur, who hails from Jalandhar, arrived at the international airport where she was received by her family members, including her husband, and former Punjab ministers Manoranjan Kalia and Anil Joshi.

She had paid Rs 40,000 to an agent to get a job in Saudi Arabia but when she went there on a tourist visa, Sukhwant was sold for Rs 3.5 lakh as a domestic servant to a family.

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She thanked External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj for extending help and bringing her back.

Thanks for bringing this to my notice. Sukhwant Kaur is returning home on 31 May 2017 at 0415 hrs by Flt G9406. https://t.co/jOSFcmFJA8 - Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) May 30, 2017

"It is a new birth as I have come back home safely from a death trap. It was next to impossible to return from there. If the external affairs minister had not intervened, I couldn't have dreamt of joining my family in India," Kaur said.

She said she was tortured and maltreated for three months after reaching there in January. She had to be taken to a hospital after she fainted.

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Sukhwant Kaur was also forced to eat meat despite she being a vegetarian.

"It was my good luck I returned to India alive. No one could have thought of coming back in the circumstances which I faced there," she said.

Her husband, Kulwant Singh, told reporters that his wife was in contact with him over phone for a week after she landed there but after a few days her phone was switched off and even the Delhi-based agent stopped taking calls.

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Singh said that on May 7, with the help of Kerala-based nurse, his wife called him up from a hospital in Saudi Arabia.

"She said the travel agent had sold her to a local resident and she was forced to work as a slave in his house and was being badly treated and even tortured," Singh told PTI.

The Indian Embassy in Saudi Arabia assured all help to the family after Kulwant made an appeal to Swaraj on Twitter.

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