Dubai: Blue-collar workers’ kindness helps debt-ridden, paralysed expat fly home after three years

Dubai: Blue-collar workers’ kindness helps debt-ridden, paralysed expat fly home after three years

“My health is now much better, and I am very motivated to improve my financial condition," Farooq Piyara Masih said.

Farooq at the airport, with Baharul, accommodation supervisor, and Ravi Santiago.

Published: Sat 26 Feb 2022, 8:52 AM

All hope was lost for Farooq Piyara Masih, 54, when Khaleej Times first met with him in 2019.

Debt-ridden and paralysed, Farooq was languishing in a Karama Park for nearly two weeks after losing his job in April 2019. A former director of sales and revenue at a leading hotel group, Farooq had racked up debts worth Dh 400,000.

Back then, a group of young Indian men, headed by a social worker named Vibin, shifted Farooq to a small room inhabited by blue-collar workers. Farooq’s plight gained national attention when the workers threw their doors open for him.

At this point, Farooq’s left hand and leg were paralysed due to a brain stroke he’d suffered a month earlier. He’d been imprisoned after defaulting on his loans a few times, and the court had ordered him to pay Dh100,000 to leave the country.

Today, after a three-year-long excruciating wait, Farooq has finally made it home to his wife and kids. A few days after Farooq’s story was published in Khaleej