Mohammed Sharfudeen, 26, said two men wearing khaki uniforms stopped him on Farazdak Street and asked for his iqama. He told them that he had lost it and so they asked him to get into their jeep and took him to a building located in an area that he did not know.
He said the incident occurred around 10.30 p.m. and that they reached the building at around midnight. “They locked me inside a room and came back after 30 minutes and demanded SR1,000. I gave them SR360 that I had in my wallet,” said Sharfudeen, who has been in the Kingdom since 2007.
He said the two men refused to take his mobile phone saying it was Chinese made. This allowed him to make phone calls while alone in the room. “I contacted officials from the Kerala Muslim Cultural Center (KMCC) in Riyadh and told them that I was being held against my will and sought their help,” he said.
The men then took him to the desert in their jeep at around 3 a.m. “I refused to get out of the vehicle since it was pitch dark and I did not know where they were going to leave me,” he said.
“Despite my refusals to get out, one of them kicked me out,” he said.
Sharfudeen said he walked for over 10 hours in the desert and reached an area called Baghlaf. Sharfudeen said a shepherd offered him water and milk and gave him directions to the nearest town.
Shaji Allapuzha, a social worker attached to KMCC, said that after receiving a telephone call from Sharfudeen, he went to Batha police station and filed a report. He added that police sent out a helicopter to look for Sharfudeen who had by then reached Baghlaf.
