DEHRADUN: The father of a 29-year-old Kashmiri man detained by Saudi authorities in Dammam nearly two weeks ago said he would meet J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah on Thursday to seek intervention for his son’s release, as the family said it had still not received any official information on his whereabouts.
Amjad Ali Bhat, a resident of Baramulla, was detained on March 25 from a health facility in Dammam where he worked as a nurse specialist, his family said.Amjad had joined the Saudi-based company in June last year, but since his detention the family said it had been struggling to find out where he was being held or why he had been picked up. His father, Ghulam Ali Bhat, told TOI on Wednesday that neither the Indian embassy in Riyadh nor Saudi authorities had given the family any information so far.
He added that even representatives of the company where Amjad worked had failed to clear the air over his whereabouts.“We will meet the CM on Thursday to seek his intervention for Amjad’s safe release. The whole family is under extreme distress as the representatives of his company are also not clearing the air over his whereabouts. We just hope that he is released as soon as possible,” Ghulam Ali Bhat said.Earlier, Amjad’s sister Shahida told TOI that the family suspected he may have been detained over a Facebook post dated March 3 that paid tribute to late Iran supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The post, which is still visible on his Facebook account, carried the leader’s photograph along with the line, ‘Iran’s not imp. Islam is important: Khamenei.’The family said it first learnt about Amjad’s detention from his roommate and colleague from Tamil Nadu on March 25, when they called his number as part of their routine contact with him. Since then, they said, they had been trying without success to get clear information from official channels, while the uncertainty had left the family under severe stress.
