Asima Khatoon was assaulted, underwent mental and physical torture, say family.
By Sreekanth A. Nair
A 25-year-old Indian woman who was working as a housemaid in Saudi Arabia was tortured to death, on Thursday. Asima Khatoon from Hyderabad succumbed to injuries while she was undergoing treatment at the King Saud hospital.
Khatoon was taking treatment at the hospital for some chest-related diseases, said reports. An anonymous person called Khatoon’s mother on Thursday and informed her about the death, reported the International Business Times.
The family alleged that she had been undergoing physical and mental torture in Saudi Arabia.
“She went there and she was assaulted there. She was kept in a room, they did not feed her. She told me she was tortured and she asked me to bring her back at any cost,” a family member was cited as saying by News18.
Khatoon’s mother alleged that she had called her two months back and told that she had been tortured by her employer. She had asked her family to arrange for her return as she couldn’t escape from the employer.
Khatoon went to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia in December 2015 on a business visa for 90 days. But the employer illegally kept her there after the expiry of the visa. The Saudi government had stopped issuing maid visa two years back. But she didn’t know the fact that she was cheated when she left for Riyadh.
Chief Secretary of Telangana Dr. Rajiv Sharma had earlier written to the Indian government seeking the help of the Ministry of External Affairs to bring her back to India.
Several incidents of Saudi employers abusing and torturing Indian employees have been reported in recent years, said the Times report.
In December 2015, a hand of an Indian domestic help was chopped off by her employer in Saudi Arabia. In the same month, three men from Kerala were beaten up by their employer. A video allegedly recorded by one of the men showed a Saudi employer beating them with a wooden plank. It had been circulating on social media.