LUCKNOW: The son, sister and other family members of Maulana Kalbe Jawad, a prominent religious leader of the Shia community in Lucknow, are currently stranded in Iran as the West Asia conflict reverberates through the region.
“My sister, nephew and younger son are currently in Iran. Many of our family members live there. My son Kalbe Ahmad has been studying in Iran for a long time. The city of Qom, where he lives, has been hit by missiles. But thankfully, he is safe,” Jawad said.
The cleric added that his son had been in Iran for almost six years, while his nephew had been living there for around a decade and a half.
Expressing anguish over the ongoing strife in the region, Jawad sought action against Israel and the United States through the United Nations. He alleged that attacks on schools had killed more than 100 children.
“Our government claims to oppose terrorism. Whoever America labels a terrorist, we also start calling them terrorists. We don’t have our own independent stand,” he said.
The cleric claimed that the Indian government had accepted US president Donald Trump as its master. “When Trump said stop buying oil from Russia, the response was ‘Yes sir’. This shows that we have moved from British slavery to American slavery,” he asserted.
Ravish Zaidi, a resident of Lucknow, works as a reporter for an Iranian state television channel in Tehran.
His father, Amir Abbas Zaidi, said Ravish had been in Iran for around 17 years and expressed concern over the worsening situation.
“Just 15 days ago, he suffered a heart attack and underwent open heart surgery. He returned home only three days ago after being discharged from the hospital. Now suddenly the war has started, which has increased our worry,” Zaidi said.
He said they speak on the phone regularly, but the sound of explosions could often be heard during the calls.
Apart from them, more than 1.25 lakh people from the state capital are believed to be stranded in strife-hit West Asian countries, including Iran, Oman, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Meanwhile, an estimated 42,000 Indians, including more than 6,000 from Uttar Pradesh, are working across Israel. Their safety is also a cause of concern for the authorities amid the ongoing conflict.
Meanwhile, Indians working on various projects in Israel are shuttling between work sites and safety bunkers. Sixteen people from Sahabpurwa Mauza of Shahnawazpur village in Bahraich have gone to Israel and are currently in Katzrin, about 250 kilometres from Jerusalem.
Abhinav Nishad works there as an engineer, while the others are employed as labourers. According to their families, there is currently no problem on the Israel-Syria border where they are stationed, but whenever sirens sound, they rush immediately to bunkers. The families said that danger persists across Israel and that underground bunkers are widely available.
“Now the situation has become such that bunkers are being built with every flat. The wall of the bunker is 2.5 to 3 feet thick. All construction there is done with RCC, bricks are not used anywhere in house construction,” said a relative of Abhinav Nishad.
However, with more than 42,000 Indians currently in Israel, including 6,004 construction workers from UP, the state’s Labour Minister Anil Rajbhar said the government was committed to ensuring their safety. “We are in constant touch with the National Skill Development Corporation and the embassy there. So far no problems of any kind have come to light,” he said.