The body of an Indian worker has been lying unidentified in a morgue here for the past nine months leading to criticism by members of the Indian community for the failure of embassy officials to identify the person and facilitate the repatriation of his remains to his home in India. The body of Thankachan George, a 55-year-old Indian expatriate from Adoor, Alappuzha district in the south Indian state of Kerala, has been lying in the morgue of Riyadh's Shumaisy Government Hospital for the past nine months, according to volunteer social workers in the local Indian community who prefer to remain anonymous. The body of George, who is believed to have died of natural causes on June 15, has been lying in the morgue listed as an unidentified Indian national, even though his driving license was in his pocket which contained his name and Iqama (residence) number. The Gulf Madhyamam daily, an India-based Malayalam newspaper published in the Kingdom, reported on Sept. 14, 2009 that George's body had been lying in a Riyadh hospital morgue unidentified for three months. That report was published at the official request of the Indian embassy. The newspaper also said that the only information the embassy had were from the dead man's driving license. George came to the Kingdom four years ago as a private driver and never went home on vacation. Apparently he rarely contacted his family and relatives in India and hence his absence went unnoticed there. Moreover, George was working in the Kingdom without a valid Iqama and proper legal documents and so his friends here were reluctant to search for him when he went missing. Sources in the Indian community point out that for the past six months, the dead man's name and Iqama number have been available, but the embassy did not take the initiative to find his address in India or to initiate the paperwork for repatriating his remains. Last Friday, Saudi Gazette reported the case of another Indian national Nara Goud whose remains have been in the morgue of Dammam Central Hospital for over nine months awaiting the permission of authorities for the body to be repatriated. Saudi Gazette also learned from a social worker that it took nine months for the body of another Indian, Prabhakaran from Kerala, who died in the Riyadh deportation center on Jan. 17, 2009, to be repatriated. His family only learned about his death six months after he died. The man's remains were repatriated only after local Indian social workers took the initiative to get involved in the case. This alleged negligence on the part of Indian Embassy authorities in facilitating the speedy repatriation of the remains of deceased Indian expatriates is being criticized by members of the Indian community and especially by volunteer social workers who devote their free time to help the embassy as a service to the community. “There should be some initiative on the part of embassy officials to repatriate the bodies of deceased Indian workers. It took our embassy nine long months to contact the Passports Department to find out the details about George and this is not acceptable. If the embassy tried sincerely, this could have been done in a month at most and the man's body could have been given back to his relatives. These dead men demand nothing but a decent burial and that too is delayed due to the negligence of the embassy,” a well-known RiyadhIndian social worker told Saudi Gazette requesting anonymity. Saudi Gazette contacted the Indian Embassy to ask why there had been a delay in the repatriation of the body of Thankachan George. R.N.Vats, Second Secretary of the Embassy's Community Welfare Wing, said that George Thankachan died of natural causes on June 15, 2009 at Shumaisy hospital in Riyadh. Indian Embassy officials learned about the death three months later in September, 2009, when they received a list of dead bodies from morgue authorities. “Accidentally, we learned that an unidentified Indian body was lying in the morgue. The embassy did not receive any details about the person except that he was an Indian and his name was Thankachan George,” Vats said. “We immediately contacted the media in the Kingdom as well as in India to publish the news in order to find details about this person. Also we sent messages to Indian government officials in India to find out where George was from. But nobody contacted us nor were we asked to search for a missing person. George was an illegal overstayer who ran away from his sponsor. Recently, we received his license from the hospital authorities and only then were we able to find out details of George from the passport department, and we have already informed the relatives about his demise,” Vats said. “The delay has happened because he was illegal and no friends or relatives came forward to inform us that such a person was missing and moreover his passport details were not available to us,” he explained. Vats confirmed that the body will be repatriated immediately and the embassy will bear all the expenses of repatriation. He also added that paperwork was being processed to repatriate the body as soon as possible.
