A total of 53 Kuwaiti expatriates, including Bangladeshis, have become stranded in Saudi Arabia after losing their passports while performing Umrah in the holy city of Makkah.
All of them holding valid work visas of Kuwait are desperately trying to go back to the country to resume their jobs and because of other commitments.
The group of expatriates, mostly from India, believes that the passports were lost at the hotel where the pilgrims stayed, apparently due to the negligence of hotel staff.
They, including women and children, traveled to the Kingdom overland in a bus from Kuwait on a week’s package.
The expatriates on pilgrimmage came to know about the loss of their passports on Tuesday afternoon when the tour operator told them to be ready to travel to Jeddah to apply for new passports.
In its report on Wednesday, Saudi Gazette quoted Basheer Abubacker Razq, one of the stranded pilgrims, to say: “We were simply shocked to know that our passports were lost, when the hotel informed us to be ready to travel to Jeddah for applying for duplicate passports at the Indian consulate,”
He added, “We believe that our passports were lost or misplaced at the hotel where we were staying. Apparently it is an act of negligence.”
Some of the pilgrims, guided by K T A Muneer, a prominent leader of the Kerala community in Jeddah, approached the Indian consulate for duplicate passports. They also met with Consul General Md Noor Rahman Sheikh and Consul Sahil Sharma to voice their grievances.
Pilgrims from Bangladesh, Egypt and Pakistan also approached their respective consulates with the lost-passport complaint.
The Indian consulate has plunged into action and dispatched a team of officials to Makkah to investigate the matter and also assist the stranded pilgrims in completing the required legal formalities.
The time required for the re-issuance of standard passports varies from country to country.
For Bangladesh, Egypt and Pakistan, new passport documents are filled back home and delivered here [Jeddah] whereas in the case of Indians, they are processed locally.
