Bengalurean sends Sushma SOS to help wife trapped in Saudi

A Bengalurean, whose wife went to Saudi Arabia to work as a domestic help eight months ago but has been kept in illegal confinement since, has approached the Minister of External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj, seeking help to bring her back to India.

Advocate B T Venkatesh has written to the minister on behalf of his client, R Baskaran, a mason by profession. He has also contacted Swaraj on her Twitter handle and the MEA’s e-mail ID. Baskaran, a resident of Thotagere village, Railway Gollahalli, said his wife, Ranjitha, was sent to Saudi Arabia by two employment agents — Kavitha, from Bengaluru, and Meeran Nagur, from Chennai.

She is under the control of a contractor named Lati. She is physically and mentally abused, starved, made to work for 18 gruelling hours a day and not being paid anything. In the last eight months, she has worked in more than 37 places. Ranjitha speaks only Tamil and Kannada, and can barely sign her name.

On March 2, Ranjitha managed to escape the illegal confinement and approached a police station in Dammam. Lati is trying to contact her but she is scared to go back to him. On March 3, around 7.15 pm, police asked Ranjitha not to complain against anybody as she may not be able to return to India. They have taken her in a vehicle without saying where she is being taken.