Indian man goes missing a day after reaching Dubai on tourist visa

Dubai: An Indian man has been missing since November 9, a day after he reached Dubai on a tourist visa, according to his relatives in the UAE.

Amrithalingam Samayamuthu, 46, a father of four from the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, had come over to take up a job, his nephew Durai Maniraja told Gulf News on Thursday.

“He came with three other people from Tamil Nadu on November 8. They stayed in an accommodation in Hor Al Anz. His roommates said the next morning he went to the workplace. After he came back, they went for work at night,” said Durai, a fisherman in Ras Al Khaimah.

He said Amrithalingam was upset as he would be alone in the room and also wanted to go. “But the others told him not to. There was no news about him later is what they told us.”

He said Amrithalingam had not called home as he did not have a UAE SIM card. “He had not called me either. Since I started getting calls from his family back home, I sought the help of my brother-in-law who is in Dubai to enquire about him.” His brother-in-law Kannan Nagoorkani, a driver in Jebel Ali, said he approached the Al Muraqqabat Police Station to file a complaint on November 16.

When contacted by Gulf News, an executive of the company which Amritalingam had visited, said he was on a visit visa. He said Amrithalingam had not taken his passport or other belongings. The passport, which was given to the relatives, showed it was issued only on October 16.

Appealing to the public to help trace Amrithalingam, Kannan said the former was in a uniform - light blue shirt and black pants - when he went missing.

Appeal to Indian Consulate

With no information about the missing man for more than two weeks, the family has appealed to the Indian Consulate in Dubai.

A spokesperson of the Consulate said the mission had intervened in the case after receiving a complaint via a Tweet on Thursday. “We are getting in touch with the relatives and local authorities,” he said.

In October, the mission had warned Indians against flying in to Dubai to seek jobs on tourist/visit visas after several ‘job seekers’ of different nationalities were denied entry at the airport for not meeting visa requirements.

The Consulate had also given instructions to ensure that only genuine tourists come on tourist visas. “If you are on a particular visa category, you have to satisfy that that you are a bona fide visa holder. No country will accept travellers without proper documents and those who do not fulfil the requirements. We have to respect the immigration authorities’ rules and nobody should travel from India to the UAE on a visit or tourist visa looking for a job,” a spokesperson had then told Gulf News.

The official had reiterated that Indian blue-collar workers should be recruited only through the e-Migrate online recruitment portal and employers and employees should follow all the regulations.

Amrithalingam’s is the second recent case of an Indian man going missing after arriving in Dubai during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A former Indian expatriate, Chenoth Thuruthummal Ashik, 31, who had returned to the UAE on a tourist visa to look for a better job, had gone missing in Dubai on October 31. However, the Keralite, who had reportedly gone out for a walk from his friends’ flat at the Persia cluster in International City around 3pm on October 31, returned after eight days.