According to government estimates, about half of the 2.8 million Indians in Saudi Arabia managed, in the last six months, to fulfill the legal requirement to stay on in that country after the November 3 'Nitaqat' deadline ran out. Ponnakkaran Muhammed of Malappuram district was not among them.

The 65-year-old arrived in his village Mattathoor on Tuesday evening, his first visit home after 18 years. He had spent 14 of those years as an illegal immigrant.

In his absence, three of his daughters were married, and his youngest son, who was born a few months after he boarded the flight to Riyadh in 1995, is now a plus-2 student. Many of his relatives are dead.

Ponnakkaran Muhammed had gone to Saudi to work as a tailor. "Many from my village were in the Gulf, and I too wanted to go. I spent Rs 20,000 on the visa," he said.

Four years later, however, he had no money to renew the visa, and continued to live as an illegal immigrant in Ruma, north of Riyadh.

"I could not manage the money to renew the visa because my entire savings were sent home for the wedding of my eldest daughter. I became an illegal resident. Had it not been for the government order to either regularise work permits or leave, I would still have been there," Ponnakkaran Muhammed said.

Saudi Arabia's 'Nitaqat' (labour) law, implemented in March 2013, made it mandatory for employers to have one Saudi citizen in every 10 employees. Foreign workers without a valid work permit were ordered to regularise their stay or leave by July 3, a deadline that was subsequently extended to November 3.

Ponnakkaran Muhammed said his first tailor's job did not last long, and he moved from one job to another. But he toiled in laundries for the most part.

... contd.

Please read our terms of use before posting comments