KENDRAPARA: It was a nightmarish ordeal overseas for an unemployed youth from a village in Odisha's Kendrapara district.
Looking for a job abroad, the construction worker found himself in an Iraqi jail after he allegedly broke Iraq's immigration law. The worker, least versed with legal complexities of immigration law, continues to rot in prison though he has already undergone the prison sentence awarded by the foreign court, a district official here said.
Sraban Sahoo from Manapada village in Rajnagar area had gone to the oil-rich country on a tourist visa instead of employment visa. An Iraqi court had convicted him to six month jail for the illegality, Kenddrapara District Collector Pramod Kumar Dash.
With none to take up his plight in the alien land, Sahoo has overstayed for more than two months in jail of the strife- torn country, the official said.
"Sahoo's whereabouts in Iraq have been traced. He has been lodged in a jail in Hilla near Iraqi capital Baghdad.
Kendrapara MP Baijayant Panda had taken up the matter with the External Affairs Ministry. Following Union ministry's intervention, the Embassy of India at Baghdad could ascertain that Sahoo is in jail at Hilla," Dash said.
Sahoo has completed his six months term for illegal stay in Iraq and is likely to be released soon. Indian ambassador stationed at Baghdad has informed that arrangement for his repatriation to India would be made following his release after completion of required legal formalities, Dash said.