Kamal Ghorui
DEHRADUN: A 29-year-old man from J&K’s Baramulla district was allegedly detained by “authorities in Saudi Arabia” after he was picked up on March 25 from a health facility in Dammam, where he used to work as a ‘nurse specialist’, over a “social media post on Iran’s late supreme leader”. Incidentally, days later, Amjad Ali Bhat’s family back home in Kashmir is still struggling to know his whereabouts and has contacted embassies and govt authorities.“We only came to know about his detention when we called his contact number on March 25. It was attended by his colleague and roommate from Tamil Nadu who told us that Amjad was on his day shift at the workplace when he was picked up by ‘local authorities’,” Amjad’s elder sister, Shahida, told TOI on Tuesday.Amjad had gone to Saudi last June to join a company in Dammam. His father, Ghulam Ali, said: “Amjad’s colleague claimed that the ‘authorities’ didn’t cite any reason behind his detention nor informed him about the charges. They didn’t share the whereabouts of the detention centre or police station. We have absolutely no information about him now and are worried amid the West Asia crisis.”Ali said that “after checking his social media, we suspect that he was detained due to a post uploaded by him on his Facebook account on late Khamenei on March 3”. TOI has received a screenshot of the post.“Our family had written to the embassy of India in Riyadh and the embassy of Saudi Arabia in Delhi,” Shahida said. The Indian embassy has replied stating that they have taken up their matter with Saudi authorities, she added. Response from the Saudi embassy in India is awaited.The family also submitted an application at the local police station and sought help from the J&K govt.Meanwhile, the embassy of India in Riyadh, in its reply on April 2, stated: “The matter has been taken up with the Saudi authorities concerned. The embassy is following it up. Will keep you informed of the developments.”Amid the family’s desperate efforts, the J&K Students’ Association (JKSA) has written to the ministry of external affairs on Monday. JKSA’s national convenor Nasir Khuehami said, “The JKSA has written to minister S Jaishankar seeking urgent intervention, and raised concerns over his safety, legal status and prolonged inaccessibility…”Amjad, who is the fourth among eight siblings, including three elder sisters, is the family’s sole breadwinner. Their father is a pensioner after retiring from the handicrafts dept under Union ministry of textiles.
