Ajman: A mistake in typing an ID number, by an immigration official in Ajman, had made a 66-year-old grandmother a prostitute.

The Indian woman from Kerala visited the country in 2005 to see her pregnant daughter, and stayed for 70 days. Six months after she left she was accused of prostitution, blacklisted and a criminal record was opened here.

An official from Ajman Residency and Foreigners Affairs Department mixed up the ID numbers of a prostitute and the Indian woman, and as a result the grandmother become prostitute. The prostitute escaped punishment and the law.

The retired teacher , identified as K.S, was here to see her daughter and son.

The son who works for a private company in Dubai told Gulf News that when his sister got pregnant, with her second child in 2008, they wanted to bring their mother again, but she was blacklisted and banned from entering.

"We applied for a visit visa for our mother through the Dubai Residency and Foreigners Affairs Department but it was rejected because our mother was blacklisted," the son said.

The son said the case against his mother was issued by the Dubai Residency Department, which formally asked Ajman residency to blacklist the woman. This decision was taken six months after the mother left the country. The blacklist and ban was done by the Ajman Residency Department despite the fact her visit visa was at the time issued by the Sharjah Residency Department.

Visa issues

Officials from the Dubai Residency Department said they never issued any arrest warrant against the mother.

The mother who entered the country legally also left the country legally through Sharjah Airport.

"In 2008 we applied for visit visa for our mother in Dubai, but to our utter dismay, the visa application was rejected. When we asked for the reason, we were shell-shocked to hear that my mother had been banned for life from entering the UAE as she has been arrested, jailed and deported from the UAE for prostitution," he said.

"We couldn't believe it, and still cannot believe how this has happened to us in a country like the UAE which has a sound legal framework, systems and most importantly strict on the execution of the law," he said.

"We tried from our side to approach the Dubai Residency Department to recheck the case and we were directed to Ajman residency department because the case is in Ajman," he said.

He said they went several times to Ajman but were not given much details of the case.

"We were given all sorts of unthinkable and illogical replies like my mother was caught in Ajman, transferred to Dubai, jailed and deported from there and so on which never happened," he said.

"We belong to a very respectable family back home and we could not imagine anything like this happening to us even in our most horrific dreams," he said.

He said the personal disgrace, emotional damage and the shock caused by the very reason of the rejected visa is irreparable.

"We did not know what to do and where to start and we also complained through the e-complain website at Dubai which also directed us to Ajman on which we had very little hope left," he said.

Mix-up: On the blacklist

Officials from Ajman residency department said that on October 24, 2006 the Dubai Residency Department sent an official letter to Ajman to blacklist a woman who works as prostitute in Dubai and cancel her residency visa issued from Ajman.

The official who was supposed to blacklist the prostitute based on the letter from Dubai Residency Department made a mistake in typing the ID numbers of a visiting Indian mother with the ID number of the prostitute.

"An official, who received the case from Dubai, mixed up the ID numbers of both women and he did not look at the names or the details," said an official from Ajman Residency Department.

The official said that the issue will be sorted out soon.