RIYADH, 22 January 2007 — While the Indian government has been attracting millions of dollars in investments from non-resident Indians (NRIs), there are no iron-clad regulations in place to safeguard their interests, say NRIs from the Kingdom.
An Indian expatriate from the south Indian city of Hyderabad said his property has been illegally occupied by a group which forged the possession certificate with the connivance of some petty government officials.
“There are quite a few people like me who have been residing in the Kingdom for over two decades. They took advantage of their prolonged absence to obtain bogus possession certificate and also by establishing good relations with the relevant government officials,” said the expatriate who preferred to call himself Abu Zain.
In an e-mail message to Arab News from Hyderabad, Abu Zain said: “A new incident took place two days ago when a gang of 20 people entered our land and demolished the room and the entrance gate.” He said some NRIs, including himself, have filed cases against illegal encroachments on their property.
Both Abu Zain and Mohammed Riaz, another Riyadh-based NRI (whose brother-in-law is a victim of encroachment), said they have been compelled to apply for long leave on loss of pay to pursue court cases and spend thousands of rupees every day to bribe officials as well as pay protection money to police.
In the process, their families in Riyadh have been suffering for months. Abu Zain’s wife, who teaches at an international school in Riyadh, told Arab News that she has been finding it difficult to keep her job, run the household, and do shopping and other chores. “This has been going on for months during which time my husband has not been paid as he is on leave without pay. I have no choice but to work in order to support the family.”
Giving a lowdown on his case, Abu Zain said: “ Our problem arose recently when we discovered that our real estate property in Hyderabad has been encroached upon by gangsters who took advantage of our prolonged absence to build a room there by tampering with the revenue records.”
