By Muslim Mirror Special Correspondent,
Mumbai, 5 Nov 2014 :The day Tanvir Alam, an AMU alumnus and AAP leader from Mumbai started fighting for the rights of labourers in Saudi Arabia more and more cases are coming out in light. Even the case of Jeddah stranded workers have not been solved properly a very shocking news about the death of a labour has come into light who had died five month back but whose corps is still lying at King Fahd Hospital in Al-Ahsa
In fact there are twenty labourers in Jubail who have not been given salary for months and were kept in the most inhuman conditions without food and basic human facilities. They have been employed in Bader H. Al-Hussaini& Sons in Jubail. Bader Al-Hussaini, the chief executive officer and owner of the company, told Arab News that he owes the workers four months’ wages. “We have just paid them one salary this morning. We will pay them two salaries this week and the fourth salary as soon as we receive a check for about SR600,000 from an authority in Jubail for which we have done work.”
However, when he was told that he would be quoted in Arab News, he said: “Ignore what I have just said, everything at the company is all right. You can’t publish this information.”
The workers have disputed Al-Hussaini’s claim. When contacted again on Monday afternoon, they said they had not received any money from the company. “We’ve been at the company since this morning. Now it’s the end of the day. We were not even informed that we would be paid, which means there was no intention to pay us.”
“We are helpless and cannot support ourselves and our families. We want to go back to India but they do not want to send us back. Please help us and highlight our case in the media as soon as possible,” one worker said.
The workers also said that one of their colleagues died five months ago but the company did not send his body home to his family. In response, Al-Hussaini said that he had attempted to contact the man’s family but had not received a response.
The workers disputed this. “We can provide contact details for the man’s family if the chief executive officer is serious about sending his body back to India.” They said their colleague’s body is being kept at King Fahd Hospital in Al-Ahsa. (Arab News, Tuesday, 2, December, 2014).
Due to the efforts of Tanvir Alam this issue is getting attention of media and authorities concerned in the respective countries. Mr Alam has taken up the problems of human rights violations and highlighted them which are very common with labrours and low category workers in gulf . Last week because of his personal efforts the stranded workers of Jeddah got relief.