Hoshiarpur, May 30 -- Families of the three Punjab residents held captive by traffickers in Iran have pinned their hopes on the Union government for their safe return after the Indian Embassy in Tehran said on Wednesday that it had taken up the matter with the Iranian authorities. The three youth, Amritpal Singh, Jaspal Singh and Hushanpreet Singh, belonging to Hoshiarpur, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar and Sangrur districts, respectively, were promised a safe pathway to Australia via Iran by the travel agents but they were abducted soon after they landed in Tehran on May 1. Contrary to what the Indian Embassy had claimed in its statement on X, the relatives of the missing youth have not yet received any update from it but they are hopeful that the government, with the help of Iranian authorities would locate the three. Gurdev Singh, the sarpanch and a relative of missing Bhagowal resident Amritpal Singh, said the family learnt about the embassy's intervention through the media. "The three families had sent emails to the Indian authorities and had also met Punjab minister Kuldip Singh Dhaliwal who had promised support. We hope that the three youth are safe and return home soon," he said. The sarpanch said that the three missing youth came in touch in a hotel in Delhi where the travel agents had arranged their stay before their flight to Iran. "It has emerged that the other youth too had paid the same travel agent for an Australian work visa", he said. Gurdev Singh said that the travel agents had sent Amritpal's younger brother to Dubai on a work permit earlier this year. "He had a three-year contract with a company in Dubai, but after Amritpal went missing, we called him back by paying Rs 1 lakh to the company," he said. In her complaint to the police, Amritpal Singh's mother Gurdip Kaur said the family paid Rs 18 lakh to Piplanwala-based travel agents and brothers Dheeraj Atwal and Kamal Atwal. Gurdip said that the captors made all the calls from Jaspal's Android phone and did not use Amritpal's iPhone. In the video calls, the captors forced the captive trio that was bleeding and bruised to make demands of money from their parents, she said. Gurdip said that for her son's release, the family deposited Rs 1 lakh in the account given by the accused from a source in Greece as the account number belonged to Pakistan. "We told them that we do not have more money and pleaded with them to release our sons but they insisted for Rs 18 lakh from each family, she said. For the past 11 days, the families have neither received any call from the captors nor have they been able to contact them. A first information report (FIR) has been registered against the Hoshiarpur-based travel agent brothers and their woman accomplice at Model Town police station, but they continue to be at large. Hoshiarpur SSP Sandeep Kumar Malik said that a special investigation team had been constituted to investigate....