RIYADH, 20 August 2005 — Five Indian workers are languishing in Saudi jails because they were unable to pay blood money to relatives of victims of traffic accidents which they allegedly caused.
According to the Indian Embassy, the five workers are required to pay blood money — ranging from SR100,000 to SR450,000 — to the victims’ relatives, said I.P. Usman Koya, chairman of the Non-Resident Keralites Forum (NRKF), an organization set up to safeguard the interests of Indian workers in Saudi Arabia.
Koya said the Indian Embassy learned about the cases only after the relatives of the detained workers submitted petitions to Indian authorities seeking their release.
Koya said NRKF will contact all members of the Indian Parliament to apprise them of the growing problems Indian workers face in the Gulf region and to seek help to facilitate the release of workers in Saudi jails.
Of the five Indians, two have been in jail since 2002 and the other three have been in detention since last September. “If these workers fail to pay the blood money, they will have to spend the rest of their lives in prison,” the NRKF official said while announcing a plan to resolve the cases.
He said plans were afoot to organize fund-raising events to help the workers. He also called for enacting new laws or bringing about necessary changes to the Indian Emigration Act 1983 to safeguard the interests of overseas workers.
Currently there is no official mechanism to ascertain the exact number of Indians serving prison terms for various offenses in the Kingdom or those languishing in jails for their inability to pay blood money, Koya said in a statement sent to Arab News.
