Stranded Indians live off alms for one year in Dubai park

CHENNAI: Twenty Indians including some Tamil Nadu natives, stranded in

Dubai

for nearly a year, their wages unpaid, passports seized and living in squalour in a public

park

, are barely getting by on

alms

from other Indian nationals. They pleaded with the Centre, through a telephone interview to TOI on Wednesday, to repatriate them at the earliest, their desperation clear when they spoke of wasted efforts to seek help from the Indian consulate in Dubai.

M Dhanapal, from Thanjavur district, said he'd been in the Gulf emirate for four years. “I have not been paid my salary for seven months,“ he said.

“I have had two heart attacks and despite pleas to my employers they refuse to send me back home.”

“We all are all living off the charity of other Indians here,” Dhanapal said, huddling together with his compatriots in the biting cold of Satwa Park.

“We urge the Union government to help us return home. Our families are desperate for us to be reunited.”

Another worker from Tamil Nadu, Palani Kumar, a native of Sivaganga district, was in tears.

“I am unwell and the company has confiscated my passport. It has warned us of dire consequences if we approach the local authorities,“ he said. “I'm desperate to go home after living in this park next to the bustling Satwa bus station for the past six months.“ Priests from a church in Bur Dubai in the heart of the city help these men with food from time to time. Ajith Prashovam, from Kerala, collects food from the church and distributes it among the stranded men.

“If Indian officials visit the park they will understand what we are going through,” Prashovam said.

But delivery appears nowhere at hand. Patukottai native T Ramesh said his firm had not paid him his salary for six months. “My employer has cheated all of us,” he said.