More than 150 bodies of residents from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have been piled up at mortuaries in Saudi Arabia for around a year with the families who are unable to bring them back to Hyderabad for last rites.

The Indian embassy in Riyadh has been of little help. Despite letters from the Ministry of External Affairs to the embassy, nothing moved. MEA officials had already express their helplessness, citing frigid Saudi employers who refuse to reply to emails or phone calls. Cause of deaths have been attributed to illness, accidents, murders and suicides usually.

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Many workers from Hyderabad, Karimnagar, Nizamabad, Warangal, Mahbubnagar in Telangana, and a few from Andhra districts have been employed in the Gulf . Statistics with the Telugu community have suggested that over 10 lakh people from the two states are employed in Saudi Arabia.

Asima, a woman from the Old City, had been tortured to death by her employer. The NRI cell in the Telangana secretariat wrote to the Indian embassy in Riyadh. But that was a volunteers group which helped to expedite the return of Asima's body, which had been sent to Hyderabad on May 20. Taher said, "This actually took less time. There are cases where bodies are lying in morgues for eight months as families can't pursue employers or MEA officials. Since the procedures are so cumbersome, a woman who came to visit her son had to be buried in Saudi.”

By Prakriti Neogi