JEDDAH: Indian expatriates overstaying their visas continue to gather under the Sharafiah Bridge on Sitteen Street, expecting the police to round them up for deportation. There were about 650 of them a month ago, but their number has now dwindled to about 270, say people involved in the issue.
“This is because the Consulate General of India has been granting them emergency certificates on a case-by-case basis,” according to Rafi Pungur, an active social worker from Kerala whose Pokkasa Kerala Association has been taking up the issue of overstayers with the consulate.
“We have been gathering under the bridge every day, but hardly any consulate official comes to meet us,” said Abdul Rahman Ponnadi, a 35-year-old factory worker from the southern Indian state of Kerala, who was terminated from service sometime ago.
“We suffer from several hardships and have to go without food and water, as we have no money and no monetary help forthcoming.”
Inquiries with the Indian Consulate show that most of the illegal overstayers are either those who have run away from their sponsors or terminated from service. There are no Umrah overstayers. “We are helpless in determining their Indian nationality, as they claim they do not possess passports. Adding to the confusion is their claim that they do not have even their passport copies or passport numbers. In such a situation, we need to refer cases to New Delhi, as a mandatory procedure, and as it becomes difficult for the consulate to verify facts before issuing the ECs,” a consulate official told Arab News. According to the official, the problem of overstayers is a constant problem.
“We still make serious efforts to help them and our records show that 20 to 30 cases are tackled daily,” he said.
Knowledgable sources say the purpose of the illegal overstayers to crowd under the bridge is to draw the attention of the police so that they are picked up and deported free of cost.
Taking advantage of their plight, some touts posing as agents have been approaching them under the pretext of facilitating their deportation for a consideration.
A couple of months ago, some 300 Sri Lankan illegal overstayers created a problem for their consulate when they squatted at the premises seeking their immediate deportation.
The overstayers, a majority of them women, said they too had stayed under the bridge, but the police did not take them for deportation.
The consulate, however, managed to organize their deportation with the cooperation of local authorities.
Prior to that Indonesian overstayers also created a commotion at their consulate when hundreds of them gathered seeking help for their deportation. The consulate had a tough time in dealing with them and subsequently facilitating their deportation.
