This story is from May 20, 2019

Hyderabad woman dies in Riyadh, family demands inquiry

Hyderabad woman dies in Riyadh, family demands inquiry
HYDERABAD: The family of a 27-year-old woman, Nasreen Fatima, has asked for an investigation into her suspicious death in Saudi Arabia. Fatima, of Al Ain colony, Shaheenagar, was working as a housemaid with a family in Riyadh. Her kafeel (employer) called her relatives on Sunday to inform them that she had died.
In a letter to union external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, Ghousia Begum said 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 Shaheenagar, 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 was made to work 15 hours a day and not paid her salary for the last 12 months. She wanted to return to India but was not being allowed to do so,” Ghousia Begum said.
She added that Nasreen last spoke to them on May 14 and was in tears, asking to be brought back to India. In the letter to Swaraj, Ghousia Begum provided the phone number on which she was online till late in the night on May 17. “We received a phone call today from her kafeel saying she had died and her body had been shifted to a hospital,” Ghousia Begum said. 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, said, “The embassy is in contact with the sponsor and kin in India for expediting formalities for dispatch of the body.”
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About the Author
Ch Sushil Rao

Sushil Rao is Editor-Special Reports, at The Times of India, Hyderabad. He began his journalism career at the age of 20 in 1988. He is a gold medalist in journalism from the Department of Communication and Journalism, Arts College, Osmania University, Hyderabad from where he did his post-graduation from. He has been with The Times of India’s Hyderabad edition since its launch in 2000. He has also done an introductory course in film studies from the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, and also from the Central University of Kerala equipping himself with the knowledge of filmmaking for film criticism. He has authored four books. In his career spanning 34 years, he has worked for five newspapers and has also done television reporting. He was also a web journalist during internet’s infancy in the mid 1990s in India. He covers defence, politics, diaspora, innovation, administration, the film industry, Hyderabad city and Telangana state, and human interest stories. He is also a podcaster, blogger, does video reporting and makes documentaries.

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