Counting pills, fearing blasts: Indians stranded in West Asia

NEW DELHI: Neeru Garg and her husband counted pills and hours. Their Sharjah return flight vanished. A taxi ride brought them to Dubai — and into a city under missile fire. “We have no money left and are running low on essential medicines,” Garg, a college principal from Punjab’s Bathinda, said Sunday from the home of an Indian doctor where they found shelter. “We don’t know where to go.”

Across west Asia, thousands of Indians — tourists, expatriates, pilgrims, politicians and families with children — have been left stranded after US-Israel strikes on Iran triggered Iranian retaliation. This in turn forced mass airspace closures and shutting down Dubai, the world’s busiest transit hub. “We were asked to leave the airport without any help,” Garg said.




Air travel disruptions deepened the crisis. Indian carriers cancelled about 350 flights Sunday alone, while west Asia-based airlines scrubbed more than 1,600 services across their networks. Airports from Chennai and Jaipur to Mangaluru and Amritsar reported mass cancellations to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Doha and Jeddah.

In Karnataka, dozens of Kannadigas were marooned across Dubai after flights were grounded mid-journey. Among them were Congress MLAs NR Bharath Reddy and SR Srinivas, and JD(S) MLC SL Bhojegowda.

Bhojegowda, travelling from Johannesburg to India via Dubai with his family, said the shutdown came without warning. “As soon as we reached Dubai airport, it was conveyed to us that all flights were grounded due to air strikes by Iran,” he said in a video message, adding that they were safe but stuck.

Karnataka election commissioner SG Sangreshi and Pushpa Amarnath, vice chairperson of state guarantee schemes implementation committee, were also unable to return. Amarnath, who was in Dubai for an award event, said guests received repeated safety alerts. “We were advised not to stand near windows. Around 60 tourists from Karnataka are staying in my hotel. All flights cancelled.”

From Ballari district, 50 tourists who flew to Dubai on Feb 24 were left stranded when their return flight on Feb 28 was cancelled as airstrikes began. Fifteen members of one family said they were denied entry at the airport and had exhausted the cash they were carrying.

“Hotel rooms were costing Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 a night per person. We couldn’t afford it and had no place to go,” one relative said. State MLAs later arranged accommodation for the group in service quarters near the airport.

In Kolkata, actor Subhasree Ganguly‘s husband, film director and Trinamool MLA Raj Chakraborty, said she could hear missile blasts from her hotel. She was stranded in Dubai with her son. Return dates remain uncertain.
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