Number of Indians down at deportation centre: envoy

By Joey Aguilar/Staff Reporter

The number of Indians at the Deportation Center has decreased to 145 from last month’s 227, Indian Ambassador Sanjiv Arora said yesterday

The figure was the lowest in the last seven months, Arora told reporters during the Open House at the embassy yesterday.

He attributed the decrease to “the very active follow-up of each case, increasing interaction and discussions with the concerned officials in Qatar”.

Arora said the Indian Community Benevolent Forum (ICBF), together with the embassy, had been helping the deportees by raising funds for their air fare. 

The ICBF bought some 60 plane tickets in the past months, including two yesterday.

ICBF president Kareem Abdullah told Gulf Times that they were also giving food and financial help to those who were in dire need and sick.

“We are very happy to solve most of the problems of our people today and we will continue to help them,” he said.

The ambassador said 42 Indians were in prison but he did not give details about their cases.

He noted that a total of 778 Indian expatriate workers had sought the embassy’s assistance in the last eight months during the Open House held on the last Friday of each month.

At least 11 persons came to the embassy yesterday and several of the cases included delayed salaries. But the ambassador stressed that these cases were only “minor in nature”.

“Some are about salary and pending dues in one or two cases, a maltreatment case and a couple of cases were about securing exit permits,” he added.

Arora said the Open House served a useful purpose in addressing “any urgent, consular, and labour issues that our community may have”.

Embassy officials said they regularly visited the deportees and met local officials to lessen these cases.

In an interview, a labourer who is seeking the embassy’s help said he was duped by an agency in India.

He said he paid QR7,000 and signed a contract for a salary of QR1,100 but when he arrived in Qatar the company paid him only QR800. He was given only one month’s salary and had not been paid for the past five months.