Thiruvanthapuram: Two Keralites who were detained in Kuwait have been released following the intervention by Mr Shashi Tharoor MP. They are Tampi Mabels, who was held in a Kuwaiti jail for over a year, and Leema Raju, a domestic help, who was put under house arrest by her Kuwaiti sponsor. Both hail from Thiruvananthapuram.
Tampi Mabels, who is in his sixties, was arrested in 2016 while he was working as sales executive at Kuwait and Saudi Development Company after his sponsor, a Kuwaiti citizen, filed a breach of trust case against him. Though the court gave him a clean chit, the sponsor had been filing appeals so that Mabels would neither be released nor allowed to leave Kuwait at any point. Mr Tharoor coordinated his release and repatriation with the help of Indian ambassador in Kuwait and Mables returned home here on Wednesday.
Leema Raju, a native of Vallakadavu, was kept under house arrest by her sponsor from April. Leema was offered Kuwaiti visa to work as domestic help by an Indian recruiting agency. On reaching Kuwait, the agent handed her over to a Kuwaiti sponsor who subjected her to physical and mental torture, and she was denied food and medicine.
