Hyderabad: Woman dies in Riyadh, family demands a probe

Hyderabad: Nasreen Fatima, working as a maid in Riyadh died on 18th May; family urges Sushma Swaraj for an investigation into her suspicious death.

According to the Times of India report, Fatima was a resident of Shaheen Nagar and working as a housemaid with a family in Riyadh. Her employer (kafeel) called her relatives on Sunday and informed that she had died.

Ghousia Begum, mother-in-law of Fatima wrote to Union External Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj that her daughter-in-law Nasreen Fatima had gone to Riyadh in search of a job as the family was having financial problems after her husband Syed Feroze met with an accident.

Through a local agent, who is also a resident of Shaheen Nagar, and a travel agency in Mumbai, she travelled to Riyadh on August 7, 2017. There, she was employed as a maid in the house of one Abdullah.

“She travelled to Riyadh on 7th August 2017 and she was employed as a maid in the house of one Abdullah. She was made to work 15 hours a day and not paid her salary for the last 12 months. She last spoke to them on May 14 and wanted to return to India but was not being allowed to do so,” said Ghousia Begum.

“We received a phone call today from her kafeel saying she had died and her body had been shifted to a hospital,” she added.

She urged officials to ask the Indian Embassy in Riyadh to inquire into the cause of Nasreen’s death and to help her bring back the body to India.

The Indian Embassy in Riyadh, responding to social worker Amjed Ullah Khan’s tweet about the death and said, “The embassy is in contact with the sponsor and kin in India for expediting formalities for dispatch of the body.”