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A senior Indian employee of Dubai Municipality , who was wrongly arrested at Sharjah International Airport earlier this month for absconding , has accused his former employer of deliberately misleading immigration authorities.
Ismael Peedika Parambil has worked as a journalist at the Public Relations department of Dubai Municipality for the last five years and was traveling home to India on July 5 to attend a family wedding when the Sharjah immigration authorities detained him.
Ismael had been reported as absconding by his former employers, a large publishing company. He had worked as a reporter at a newspaper owned by the publishers before joining the Dubai Municipality in 2005. I was shocked when I was detained and asked to join other absconders. I frantically tried calling all possible officials to convince the authorities there that I worked with the Dubai Municipality. If I had not received timely help from a close friend I would have probably ended up in one of the prisons and deported, said Ismaeel.
According to documents obtained by the former PRO of the media organization in question, reported in December 2005 to immigration authorities that Ismael had been missing for five years and deposited an air ticket to deport him.
I left that newspaper in 2001 and had completed all formalities with the company, Ismael told. I could never imagine that they would place me on the absconding list especially because everyday for the past five years I have been sending press releases to all media organizations, including my former employer, he added.
Ismael, whose passport has now been cleared after senior officials at Sharjah immigration intervened, also blamed his former employers of doing nothing to resolve the issue after he had been wrongly arrested, adding that he nearly missed the wedding as a result.
Mr Khalid, the current PRO of the publishers, when asked why Ismael was listed as an absconder answered : ‘There is nothing for me to say. The issue is over and resolved.
But on Saturday another reporter from Dubai was detained at Sharjah airport after she too was listed as an absconder eight years after she had resigned from the same paper. Her passport continues to be held by immigration authorities.
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