Jagtial man’s body lies in Saudi for weeks

​Hyderabad: The body of Ponnam Satyanarayana (48) from Jagtial district, along with that of another man Jaswinder Singh (56) from Kapurthala district in Punjab, who died in Riyadh are lying in a Saudi mortuary for weeks as their former employers are not ready to bear the cost of transporting the bodies to India.

According to newspaper reports from Riyadh, Satyanarayana passed away on March 11 while Jaswinder Singh died on February 21.

Since then, their mortal remains were in Riyadh, the Saudi Gazette reported on Tuesday. Both the deceased used to work for a now defunct construction company. It is the employer’s duty to transport the body back to his/her native country by making exit papers and by bearing transport cost.

The deceased were in Saudi Arabia for over 20 years but had no job for some time as their employer abandoned them along with scores of other workers, according to the report.

Both Indians were waiting to receive their end of service benefits and planning to leave for good, the daily said.

The company, where the men used to work, is not ready to bear the embalming and cargo charges. The chemical embalming of coffin box is mandatory as per the International Air Transport Association (IATA) rules.

“We are passing through extremely difficult times and penniless without salaries for more than one and half years. The tragic deaths of our colleagues have saddened us,” Saudi Gazette quoted the colleagues of the deceased men.

“We were like brothers after spending several years together both in bad and good times. Contributing some amount for repatriation is not a big issue for us but we have no money,” they said.