RIYADH: A group of Indian workers who, on arriving in the Kingdom, were forced to sign new contracts for lesser salaries have called on the Indian Embassy to intervene and help end their plight.
The workers claim that when they reached Saudi Arabia, their sponsor threatened to kill them if they did not sign a second contract that stipulated lower salaries. As per the new contract, they were bound to undertake unskilled manual work.
“After giving us iqamas, the local sponsor sent us to work for a travel agency where we were asked to do all types of unskilled manual jobs,” said Mohammed Shaheen, one of the five workers.
“We all felt that our local sponsor had sold us to another company as laborers. We were asked to sign another contract for lesser salaries,” he said, adding that the five workers had each paid SR28,000 to their local agent in India.
R. Muraleedharan, convener of the Federation of Kerala Associations of Saudi Arabia, said the workers want the Indian mission to negotiate with their sponsor to give them the jobs and salaries stated in their original contracts signed in India. He added that the company should repatriate the workers back to India if it is unable to comply with the terms of the original work contract.
The workers also say that they have been given accommodation that is only suitable for two people. The workers, Mohammed Shaheen, Shamel Theckkeyil, Suresh Kokkan Chalill, Balan Charalil and Muhammed Muslih, came to the Kingdom to work as a ticketing clerk, an electrician, a tiles mason, a shuttering carpenter and an Autocad technician respectively.
