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Indian expat community is in good hands, no one should be worried

The advisory issued by the Indian foreign ministry and the Indian diplomatic mission in the UAE is reassuring and welcoming (Indian expats safe in Gulf, no plans for emergency flights: Official; KT, April 11). Needless panic was created by a few Dubai-based social activists and their organisations through an interview given to a popular regional TV channel in Kerala on April 9. The activists said the Indian blue-collared workers in the labour accommodations and in the lockdown areas of Dubai are facing death and starvation. They also mentioned that a lot of poor and marginalised Indian expats were tested positive have been shifted in an inhuman manner and put in quarantine facilities at an unknown place with no access to contact them.
Such kind of outrageous and bizarre statements made by these hyper-social activists vitiates the smooth diplomatic atmosphere prevailing between India and the UAE. It creates fear in the mind of expat families who are residing in places other than Kerala.
The social activist also mentioned that India's neighbouring countries have arranged chartered flights to airlift their affected countrymen and blamed the Indian government and the Kerala state government of inaction. This was despite the local Kerala state minister Arun Kumar repeatedly assuring the social activist that the state government was in coordination with the union government to work out some solutions.
The statements given by the activists to Kerala TV channels need to be unequivocally condemned.
I strongly urge the Indian diplomatic mission in the UAE and the UAE government, who have been untiring in their efforts to help the Indian expat community, take note of fear-mongering by the social organisations and their activists. -Gopal Sriniwasan, Dubai