HYDERABAD: A 24-year-old Indian woman from Rajanna

district in

has written to union external affairs minister to rescue her from

saying that she was in distress and being physically tortured by the employer.

The victim, Lavanya, also sent a video to TOI showing the injuries on her hand as the employer out of desperation had scratched her when she was trying to escape from being beaten up by him. The woman who is feeling unsafe in the house where she is working as a housemaid in

pleaded that she be rescued as the man had been torturing her to submit to him when his wife was not in the house. She has also been thrashed.

A woman below 30 years of age cannot be employed as a housemaid in Saudi Arabia, the victim was sent to Riyadh by an agent. “I am feeling unsafe here. I live in fear every day,” the victim who was taken to Saudi Arabia four months ago said. Her sister who lives in Sircilla district said after the family got to know two months back that she was being physically tortured for not giving in to the demands of the employer, their father suffered a heart stroke and had to be admitted in the hospital. “As he was eager to see my sister return safe, the doctor who was treating him a private hospital also spoke to the employer to let allow her to come back to India but there has been no positive responsive,” her elder sister said.

A social worker Shivaji Donthula with the Gulf Workers Awareness Centre, who works in

, Saudi Arabia also tweeted to the notice of the Indian Embassy in Saudi Arabia, union external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and former minister and TRS working president KT

Rama

Rao about the plight of the victim.

On May 9, the Indian Embassy in Riyadh, however, responded saying: “Premature repatriation before completion of the contract is not easy. However, the embassy will make all possible efforts for repatriation of Ms Lavanya ASAP.”

The General Administration (NRI) Department in a letter to the Indian embassy in Riyadh and external affairs minister on April 17 urged that she should be rescued. “The employer has been harassing her,” the letter said explaining the physical torture that she was being subjected to. The Indian Embassy in Riyadh, in turn, has written to the recruiting agency in Mumbai through which the woman had been sent, that the woman was living in miserable conditions without proper food, salary and basic facilities as had been brought to the notice of the embassy by her family and government of Telangana. Asking the agency to make arrangements for her repatriation to India, the embassy also said pointed out that it appeared that proper procedures for recruitment of housemaid were not followed by it and sought an explanation.

The victim’s sister, however, told TOI that the agent who send her to Saudi Arabia was demanding Rs 96,000 to be paid to him for her to be sent back. “My sister went to Saudi only because we did not have money. How can we pay that money?” she said pleading that she be rescued at the earliest.