Hyderabad: A 30-year-old person who went to Kuwait to work as a rigger is stranded there even after submitting his resignation and serving the three-month notice period.
Tuniki Naresh, from Jagtial district, was working for Integrated Logistics Company Limited (ILC). His contract expired in July 2016. He says that he is not able to return to India as another employee of ILC with the same name had left the job and had later died, and as his company by mistake had submitted his details and visa as the deceased person’s ones.
Meanwhile, his wife Lavanya, a beedi worker, is running from pillar to post and meeting authorities and politicians seeking their help to bring back her husband's safely.
Naresh, hailing from Anthargam village, is married to Lavanya, and has two sons Harshavardhan, 9, and Aditya, 4. In 2000, he joined ILC as a rigger and since then his contract was extended twice. He came home twice for an annual vacation, but his contract expied in July 2016.
Not willing to continue, he submitted resignation three months before contract expiry and requested his employee to process his documents with the embassy for an exit visa.
Meanwhile, another employee of ICL, Tuniki Naresh, who hailed from Kathalapur in Karimnagar district, and who had left the job, died in January. The Kuwait police with Naresh’s civil identity card approached ICL and they gave them him the documents of Tuniki Naresh by mistake. This they realised only when they started processing Tuniki Naresh's documents for an exit visa.
“They requested me not to complain at the Indian Embassy and that they will get the process done. But now they seem not concerned. When I tried on my own to get the process done, I found that Naresh had purchased mobile phones using his civil card and the instalments were not paid. Around 2000 Kuwait Dirhams including tax and interest is outstanding on his card,” Naresh said, adding that he only wants to return home and be with his family and not pay dues from ICL.
Since ICL authorities gave his documents when Naresh died, as per government records he has died, and his body had been sent to India. He says that though he is having work now, he is staying on a dead person’s visa and is scared of being arrested. “My employer had lost my passport. When I approached the embassy in December, they asked for my passport which I do not have and now they are delaying the process,” Naresh said. His wife Lavanya said that she had been meeting local leaders to help her husband return but nothing has been done till now.
“A week ago, I and my mother-in-law and two kids approached a top leader in the Telangana government, fell on his feet and begegd for help but there was no movement,” she said, adding that since his husband stopped sending money she is struggling for food and educate the kids. Harshavardhan is studying in Class II and Aditya has just joined school. Naresh’s mother Radha is supporting the family by making beedis.
