Some Indian workers who have returned from crisis-ridden Iraq to their homes in the north Karnataka districts are unlikely to leave their place anytime in the near future, shaken as they are by their experience.
“Till the plane landed in the Delhi airport, we did not believe we could get back alive,” said Riyaz Kachapur from Kudarisalotagi village in Basavanabagewadi taluk of Bijapur district.
He and his friends Mahantesh Alur, Basavaraj Woddar and Arvind Kademani returned recently. Mr. Kachapur narrated the terrible days in Najaf, Iraq.
“We were just 40 km away from the place where there was fighting. We hardly slept. We began cursing the day when we decided to leave India,” said Mr. Kachapur, the 25-year-old paan beeda seller who went there in February to work as a painter in a private company.
Mr. Alur complained that the company did not treat them well. “Four of us from here went after hearing about monthly salaries of Rs. 40,000. We got our visa and passport through an agent, but later learnt that we only had tourist visa and were made to work illegally. The company paid us only one month’s salary. After that, we got no money. They kept rejecting our requests to send us back,” he said. He took a loan of Rs. 1.5 lakh to get back to India and is not sure how he will repay. He said that about 2,000 Indians work in Iraq for the same company.
Help from embassy
Mr. Kachapur said the Indian embassy helped most workers return. But he thinks nearly 200 men are still “trapped” there, including eight from his village. He plans to restart the paan shop and live with his family.
Similar is the sentiment of Suresh Pundalik Ramaban of Hiranagav village in Basavakalyan taluk of Bidar district. “I will work as a farm labourer and die in my village. I will not go anywhere else, ever,” said Mr. Ramaban, who has just returned from Iraq.
He worked as a civil contractor in his village when he heard that he would be paid 10 times what he earned in the Gulf for the same job. “I paid an agent some money to prepare the papers. I worked as a labour supervisor for a construction company near Baghdad,” he said.
This dream, however, turned into a nightmare once the violence began. “Every night, I wept, thinking of my children,” he said. “Only in such conditions you realise what a peaceful country India is. We might have been born poor. But we were happy. I will never leave my family again,” he said, and thanked the Indian embassy.
