Joseph Chacko, his wife Simi Jose and his two children came back to Kerala from strife torn Libya on Thursday morning. While the Centre and the state government is busy vying for credits for their safe return the people who have returned from the harrowing experience have a different tale to tell.
While Kerala CM Oommen Chandy said that the centre had not helped Indians in Libya, Sushma Swaraj retaliated saying the centre had paved way for many evacuations.
“Neither Centre nor the state government helped my brother and his family while they were in Libya,” said Baby, Joseph Chacko’s brother.
“The Indian Embassy’s behaviour was very bad towards the people who were stuck there. They said they could not take responsibility for the situation and did not help them with their salary matter also,” added Baby.
The hospital that Joseph and the others were working for used to transfer their salaries to the bank and when they approached the bank to withdraw their salaries the bank said they did not have enough funds to let them retrieve three years’ salary.
According to Baby, a Libyan military official was the only person who helped these people in need. He let them stay in his apartment and provided them with food and other things.
“The condition in the apartment was very bad. There was no electricity, food or water. The Libyan military official provided them with food.”
Thomas and Lisy Thomas another couple who escaped from Libya also had similar complaints regarding the Indian government and the Embassy.
“If the Indian Embassy had contacted the Libyan government earlier we could have reached home sooner,” said Thomas.
“When we approached Chief Minister Oommen Chandy he said he will help with paying for the tickets for those stranded in Libya, but as of now we haven’t received even a single penny,” said Baby.
“We traveled on our own personal risk,” Thomas added.
Also read http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/indians-rescued-libya-kerala-state-and-central-govt-spar-over-who-takes-credit-43133