RIYADH, 14 January 2005 — Four Indian female workers — one young nurse and three maids — are missing mysteriously for the last several months after they arrived in the Kingdom to work for their sponsors. These four form part of the original group of 109 missing Indian workers for whom the Indian Embassy launched a manhunt last year following complaints lodged by their relatives and friends.
“The delay in tracking the missing persons is partly due to the apathy on the part of their friends and relatives, who inform the Indian mission about such cases very late,” said V.V. Narayanan, second secretary at the embassy here. Narayanan pointed out that in one case, a report about a missing person named Muhammad Isa from Uttar Pradesh was lodged with the embassy nine years after his disappearance.
In many cases, the Indian Embassy has received requests from parliamentarians and legislators to trace certain missing workers. A majority of the missing workers, nearly 29 out of the 109 cases, are from Kerala. “In 14 cases so far, the embassy has got some breakthrough,” claimed the diplomat.
The growing number of missing cases, however, has raised concerns among Indian expatriates. Recently, a young Indian woman named Shylamma Clarence went missing mysteriously for several months after she arrived in the Kingdom to work for a sponsor in Al-Kharj, 80 km south of the capital city.
Of late, several cases have been brought to the attention of the embassy and the Saudi government agencies. Many foreign workers and their children have been found either missing or in some cases hiding themselves.
