Dubai : An Indian teenager, who remained stranded in Bahrain for nine years due to lack of legal documents and identity papers, is set for a reunion with his father, a media report said.
Raja Prasad, now 18, was just nine years old when his father Thani Prasad was deported in 2006. His father hailing from from Hardoi in Uttar Pradesh was a laundry worker who lived in Bahrain for 16 years. Raja was stranded here because he was born out of wedlock and had no legal documents or identity papers, Gulf Daily News reported. He has remained stateless since then.
The teenager is now going home after obtaining an outpass from the Indian Embassy. “It took us nine years to overcome several hurdles in this special case because the father did not co-operate with us from an early stage,” said social worker Mehru Vesuvala.
She said that an absence of official documents was the reason the case had dragged on for so many years. “This case would have been solved earlier if the father provided documents to prove that Raja was his son, such as a birth certificate which he did not have,” she said.
“After we managed to get all the paperwork from his father, an application was submitted to the (Indian) Home Affairs Ministry, following which we got the outpass,” Vesuvala said. Raja was born out of a wedlock to a Sri Lankan mother, who left his father when he was just two-year-old.
When his father was deported in August 2006, he was stuck in Bahrain, where he has remained stateless ever since. Indian Embassy attache consular in Manama B S Bisht, who followed up the case with ministries in Delhi, said his plane ticket had been purchased with help from the Indian Community Welfare Fund.
