Man who came to KSA seeking a better future returns home in coma

March 31, 2014

Jeddah, Mar 31: The body of an Indian expat who had fallen into a coma after being hit by a car within merely two months of arriving in the Kingdom was finally repatriated on Saturday after almost two years since the fatal incident occurred.

Thirty-one-year-old Zahid Hussain, from Bihar in India, had arrived in a remote village near Khamis Mushait in May of 2012 to work as a heavy vehicle driver.

Hussain was walking on a pedestrian path when he was hit by a speeding car driven by teenagers on July 24 of that year.

Hussain, who had come to the Kingdom after numerous attempts through manpower agents back home, had been in a coma at the Khamis Mushait General Hospital ever since. Police arrested the two youth who were responsible for the accident.

Jeddah Gov. Prince Mishaal bin Abdullah arranged for the repatriation of the body on Saturday with the help of the Indian Consulate, a move which took nearly four months.

The governor had been made aware of the incident through the Jeddah Traffic Police.

Back home, Hussain’s wife was forced to work as a housemaid and his son a child laborer at a tea shop to repay the interest on the loan Hussain had taken to come to the Kingdom.

“His family hadn’t heard anything from Zahid since they do not have any friends or relatives in the Kingdom,” Shaikh Kauser, the victim’s brother, told Arab News from New Delhi on Saturday.

“We borrowed money to come to New Delhi to receive our brother’s body since we come from a poor family,” he said. “Even Zahid’s son was forced to drop out of school to work as a tea boy to make ends meet.”

“It was a lengthy process getting the victim repatriated to India,” said Ashraf Kuttichal, an Indian social worker in Abha, who flew with the body to New Delhi.

“The victim’s sponsor had not applied for a residency permit for Zahid even though he was working for him,” he said. “This hampered the repatriation process, since you need an iqama to apply for a final-exit visa. The sponsor had also refused to pay late penalties for failing to apply for Zahid’s iqama. It was the Indian Consulate that finally paid the penalty on his behalf.”

“The hospital had initially refused to discharge Hussain after we had finally overcome these legal hurdles, saying he was unfit for travel,” said Kuttichal. “They eventually agreed and Indian Consul General Faiz Kidwai sanctioned just under SR17,000 to transport Hussain’s body on board a Saudia flight.”

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UN condemns Israeli regime’s ‘organized torture’ against Palestinians

News Network

November 30,2025

The United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) has condemned the Israeli regime for enforcing a policy of “organized torture” against Palestinians.

In a report published on Friday, CAT stated that the occupying regime enforces a deliberate policy of “organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment” against Palestinian abductees, particularly since October 7, 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza.

The committee expressed “deep concern over repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, water-boarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence” inflicted on Palestinians.

Palestinian prisoners were degraded by “being made to act like animals or being urinated on,” systematically denied medical care, and subjected to excessive restraints, “in some cases resulting in amputation,” the report added.

CAT also condemned the routine application of “unlawful combatants law” to justify the prolonged detention without trial of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children.

More than 10,000 Palestinians, including women and children, are currently held in Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian and international human rights groups, with 3,474 Palestinians in “administrative detention,” meaning they are imprisoned without trial for indefinite periods.

The report highlighted the “high proportion of children who are currently detained without charge or on remand,” noting that while Israel sets the age of criminal responsibility at 12, even younger children have been abducted.

Children designated as security prisoners face severe restrictions on family contact, may be subjected to solitary confinement, and are denied access to education, in clear violation of international law.

The committee further suggested that Israel’s policies across the Occupied Territories constitute collective torture against the Palestinian population.

“A range of policies adopted by Israel in the course of its continued unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading living conditions for the Palestinian population,” the report said.

On Thursday, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas condemned the systematic killing and torture of Palestinian abductees in Israeli prisons, urging international action to halt these abuses.

Citing human rights data, Hamas stated that 94 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli prisons since the start of Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on Gaza.

“This reflects an organized criminal approach that has turned these prisons into direct killing grounds to eliminate our people,” the resistance movement said.

Hamas called on the international community, the UN, and human rights organizations to immediately pressure Israel to end crimes against prisoners and uphold their rights as guaranteed by all international conventions and norms.

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