World | India
Dubai's Indian community ready to help
Indian community leaders in Dubai have said they are ready to help their compatriots in Mumbai if assistance is needed.
- By Daniel Bardsley, Staff Reporter
- Published: 00:00 July 13, 2006
Dubai: Indian community leaders in Dubai have said they are ready to help their compatriots in Mumbai if assistance is needed.
Groups representing UAE residents from Maharashtra, the Indian state of which Mumbai is the capital, say they will react quickly if there are any pleas for aid.
Deepak V.B, president of the Maharashtra Mandal Dubai Society, said: "If there are requests for our members to contribute, we will collect from them and forward it on. If there are any specific requests, certainly we will respond.
"Not only people from Maharashtra, but the whole Indian community in Dubai would help," he said.
Deepak said any aid would be organised through the Indian Community Welfare Committee, an umbrella group for Indian associations which was formed in 2000 under the patronage of the Consulate General.
He added that he was "very relieved" not to have heard of any of the 600 members of the Maharashtra Mandal Dubai Society having been hurt in the blasts or having suffered a bereavement.
B.S. Mubarrak, Indian Consul in Dubai, likewise said he had "not received any news" that any locally-based Indians had been hurt in the bombings.
"I've not received any information that there have been casualties or dead from Dubai residents in Mumbai," he said.
About 10,000 families and 100,000 blue-collar workers from Maharashtra reside in the UAE. An estimated 700 of them are thought to be in Mumbai for the summer.
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