Originally posted to The Middle East Monitor website, 18 May 2022
An Indian expat has been fired from his job in Qatar and deported following comments he made, that nurses from his home state of Kerala were being sent to Gulf states to become “sex slaves for terrorists”.
The man, identified as Sisupalan Durgadas, appeared in a video which surfaced online and made the remarks while taking part in a Hindu religious event in the southern Indian city of Thiruvananthapuram.
During the event, Durgadas spoke of a “high” incidence of religious conversions in the Gulf, adding: “We are helpless there… Jamaat-e-Islami men are in the Gulf with big business establishments. Under the guise of recruiting nurses… we have come to know that they [nurses] are being taken for meeting the sexual needs of terrorists.”
After the video circulated online, Durgadas was dismissed from his position of regional coordinator of the Malayalam Mission, a Kerala government initiative to promote Malayalam globally, and was fired from his job as a senior accountant.
On 5 May, the Malayalam Mission in Qatar released a statement confirming Durgadas had been expelled from his position. Various organisations, including a nursing organisation in Qatar, demanded action and filed complaints to the Chief Minister of Kerala.
Malayalam Mission Airector Murukan Kattakkada said Durgadas was stripped of his post as he hurt the self-respect of those Kerala women who go abroad to look for work. “Such comments should not have come from a person entrusted with the task of imparting language and its cultural values,” Kattakkada said, adding Durgadas was removed as the Mission has to “respect the concerns and the complaints of parents of [nursing] students.”
