Dubai: In a rare case of illegal residency in the UAE for over two decades, an Indian expat woman has become one of the biggest beneficiaries of the UAE’s visa amnesty, flying home after 22 years with authorities waiving more than Dh730,000 in residency fines.
Eada Ratna Kumari, 72, who worked as a housemaid, had an emotional reunion with her children and met her grandchildren for the first time in the southeastern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday, according to a community member who saw her off at Dubai International Airport late on Tuesday night.
Kumari is one among the last batch of amnesty seekers to fly home before the two-month grace period for the UAE residency law violators to exit the country or legalise their status to continue living here without fines and immigration ban ends on Thursday.
Before flying home, Kumari, who speaks her mother tongue Telugu, spoke to Gulf News through a relative who helped with translation.
She said: “My children were small when I came here. Now they are all big and married and have children. I am going to meet my grandkids for the first time.”
She had first landed in the UAE with an Abu Dhabi visa in 1996. “I had gone home twice in the first five years. After that, I never went,” she recalled.
How she became an illegal resident
Kumari said she became an illegal resident after she left her employers, whom she claimed mistreated her. Her visa expired in 2002.
She said her husband had passed away and she had no other option but to stay back in the UAE to raise her three children—two daughters and a son. She moved to Dubai and worked part time in multiple households.
“I lived for my children. I have fulfilled my duties. Now, I can go home. I have no words to thank this country,” said the grandmother.
She expressed her gratitude to the UAE authorities for waiving the enormous fines and allowing her to exit the country without any legal punishment. She also thanked the community volunteers and the Indian Consulate in Dubai who helped her with the amnesty procedures.
In a statement to Gulf News, the mission said: “The Consulate has received many cases in which Indians could not return to India for many years due to a lack of a valid visa. Thanks to the amnesty offered by the UAE government, they now had the opportunity to legalise their stay and return to their families in India. We urge all Indian nationals to adhere to local visa rules, and if they need our assistance in availing themselves of the benefits of the amnesty, they should come to the Consulate before the deadline. We also appreciate the help received from various community organisations.”
Complex case
Shaikh Muzaffer, founder president of Aim India Forum (AIF), a community group supporting the consulate in the amnesty procedures, explained how community volunteers and officials from the mission and local authorities worked together to process the application of Kumari.
“When she approached the consulate to avail of the amnesty facility, she didn’t have a single piece of paper except for a handwritten copy of her passport that is around 20 years old.”
However, they could not track down any documents related to her.
Since her visa was issued in Abu Dhabi, he said he reached out to some officials at Abu Dhabi’s immigration. “With their help, I managed to get her UID number, and the fine amount associated with it. She had accumulated Dh73,2450 in total for overstaying for 7,895 days.”
Muzaffer said they then applied for the lost passport report from the police, which they received in 48 hours. “After that, we proceeded with the application for her emergency certificate [EC].”
Also called an outpass, the EC is a one-time travel document issued to those who do not hold a valid passport to travel to India.
“We also contacted Abu Dhabi immigration to seek permission to issue her exit permit from our system as our consulate’s administrative department has a process for issuing exit permits from the immigration. When we applied for her permit, it was issued within two to three hours and we managed to get her fines cleared within two hours after obtaining the emergency certificate.”
Last week, the Indian Consulate announced that it had facilitated 10,000 Indian expats who sought the services of the ongoing UAE visa amnesty. While 1,700 emergency certificates, 1500 exit permits were issued to help applicants leave the country, 1,300 short validity passports were issued to applicants who opted to stay back in the UAE.
