RIYADH: An Indian worker who came to the Kingdom for work six weeks ago committed suicide in his room by hanging himself.
Sheikh Yusuf Basha, 25, from the village of Khadri, Ananthapur district in Andhra Pradesh came here as an electrician in July this year to work at a private electrical shop in Riyadh.
He lived with his uncle S.K. Muzaffar, who assisted him in getting the Saudi visa.
Muzaffar said, “When I went to work in the morning on Wednesday Basha was fast asleep and when I came home at 3 in the afternoon, I found his body hanging from the ceiling.” Muzaffar pointed out that the younger brother of the deceased had been working in Riyadh for some time.
“Basha did not have any financial or any other commitments. He did not pay a single riyal to come to Saudi Arabia since I got him the visa through a Saudi friend,” he explained.
The parents of the deceased have requested the Indian Embassy to send the body home. In a letter addressed to the mission, they said, Basha was in good health when he left for Saudi Arabia.
“Compared to the Indian population of 1.8 million in the Kingdom, the suicide rate is quite low,” Rajeev Shahare, deputy chief of the Indian mission in Riyadh said.
He pointed out that the usual reason for such suicides is that the workers were deeply in debt back home and were finding it increasingly difficult to repay the loans taken from the agents in India.
He added that many of those committing suicides lack proper sponsors, have no work or run away from their original sponsors.
