HYDERABAD: Days after a Hyderabad resident stuck in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia sent out several SOS-es on Twitter, AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi approached Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj to intervene into the matter and help him return. Previously, the Indian Embassy in Saudi Arabia too had vowed to help in the matter.
In March, Mir Murtaza Ali, a resident of Tadban, Kalapathar in Hyderabad, went to work as an Auto Cad operator for one Manto Rose Cafe, a restaurant in Saudi Arabia's Khobar. According to his contract paper that TNIE accessed, Murtaza was to be paid 3,000 Saudi Riyals (which roughly translates to Rs 50,000) per month as a salary.
Shahana Begum, Murtaza's wife to the Express, said,"There was a deal made with his Kafeel that he would be allowed to return home during Ramzan. Accordingly, Murtaza bought his ticket. However, later the kafeel told him that he will not be allowed to return until two years. This reportedly irked Murtaza so much that he approached the Embassy over there but to of no avail. That was when he decided to give himself up to the police by throwing away his Saudi identity card," his wife said.
Murtaza is currently in remand of Immigration officials in Jeddah.
In the letter to MEA, Owaisi wrote, Murtuza's family approached me and said that Kafil is asking money of 50,000 Saudi Riyals to release him. He is very poor...(and) is the only source to his family. In fact, Begum doesn't even want his Kafeel to free him. She contends that if the kafeel frees her husband, then he would have to stay back in Saudi Arabia until he pays back the 50,000 SR. Hence I request you to kindly consider the case sympathetically and help this person to return back to India, Owaisi wrote.