“It was a sigh of relief for me when I landed at Mumbai airport with my 42 colleagues on early Saturday morning. Four-hour-long process of immigration clearance didn’t felt tiring despite 15 hours long journey, said Vijay Valmik, the Gujarati worker who, returned home on Saturday.
He, along with other 1,200 workers was stranded at the cement plant near Sumbe in Angola for more than 25 days.
Expressing happiness over return, Valmiki said, “I have mix feelings. I am feeling great to be back among my family, but worried over the fate of my other colleagues who are still stranded in Sumbe,” said Vijay. Apart from Valmik, three other Gujarati workers namely, Jitendra Patel from Valsad, Ramkashyan Parmar from Jamnagar and Mahendra Patel from Bilimora returned home on Saturday.
Valmik reached Petlad Saturday afternoon after landing at Vadodara airport in the morning. Surrounded by family members, friends and relatives, he looked more worried about his fellow Indian workers, who are still living in fear. He kept receiving phone calls from Angola about the latest happenings at the plant.
Valmik said that the local staff of ETA International is not allowing Indian workers to meet high level officials of the company, who are presently in Angola to resolve the issue. “I’ve just received a phone call from Angola that the local managers are not allowing workers to meet company’s DGM Rabi Das Gupta, who is presently in Sumbe,” said Valmik.
Valmik has been paid his overtime due after significant deduction. He said, “Company is not bad, as I’ve worked for it for four years in Dubai also, but there the local level officials are trying to eat away the money of workers. That caused the unrest.”
