The External Affairs Ministry is sending a senior official to Muscat to investigate the case of a woman, who died after being stranded at the airport there for five days after she lost her passport.

"We are sending a senior official of the Ministry to Muscat to conduct an enquiry and report back to me," External Affairs Minister S M Krishna told reporters here.

This move comes in the backdrop of reports that embassy officials did not help 40-year-old Keralite Beebi Lumada, a housemaid who was travelling from Muscat to Chennai via Doha by a Qatar Airways flight last week, who lost her passport while in transit at the Doha airport.

When her passport was not found, she was sent back to Muscat, the port of origin. Lumada, who hailed from Kerala, wanted to go back to her home city Thiruvananthapuram.

The housemaid, who died on her way to hospital, had cancelled her Oman residence visa and since she did not carry her passport she was not allowed to re-enter Muscat.

An airline official said they were given repeated assurances that the embassy officials would come and visit the stranded passenger but there was no visit even after requests from the airport police.

The airline even tried in vain to contact the stranded passenger's sponsor.

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