BPO Company has my passport without my consent and forcing me to sign 1-year bond..

Hi,
Would like to share something that I have experienced just today. Please do let me know how I should be reacting to this situation.

I was working for a Company based in Dallas on a BOT model from Bangalore. Recently, 10 months earlier they started their own firm here and i still continued to work with the same company. Total years of service to the company is 2.6 years, without a single black mark in that tenure.

All these years, they promised me raise in salary, retention bonus, promotions; but, none materialized for me. Recently, they started planning to send most of the employees for a global-rotation program. My name came up at the last moment after everyone were sent to the US on a 3-month basis. I had gone to chennai to apply for visa and got rejected the first time. Company sent me again for second time, but this time i was to go to US not for 3 months, but for 2 months only.

Everyone who went to US should sign a bond for 1 year from the day they returned back to work, as part of employee retaining initiative.

When i came back after my visa interview, circumstances at my home prompted me to not to go to US, and i intimated my management of the same, but told them that i would be willing to cover the visa costs incurred by the company.

For this, when my passport came back with visa stamped, my TL received it on my behalf and hid it from me. Upon questioning he said tat I have to sign a bond of 1-year even if I go to US or not.

This is something tat has never happened to anyone in our office before. So i refused to do it. My manager asked me the same, and when my answer was adamant, he said that I have to either sign the bond or they will keep the passport and terminate me.

I told my manager that I was sorry to be in a situation where I am not in a position to travel, but at the same time, I would not sign a bond just for the heck of it.

Enraged at my response, i was terminated, my desk cleaned, workstation id locked off, and was sent back home without my passport or any talk of my months salary.

So, please help me to justify their actions and let me know my next course of action.

Thanking you all in advance.