Ras Al Khaimah: A blue-collar worker has been left with multiple fractures after his employer beat him up for asking for a Dh200 salary advance.
Pakistani Ali Ijaz, 23, who works for a private company in Ras Al Khaimah, told XPRESS he was hit, shoved around and punched in the face by his employer, also a Pakistani.
Sequence of events
“On June 27 I visited my boss at his house to ask for an advance of Dh200. It was the third time in that week that I had approached him for help. However when I went to his house, he lost his cool and attacked me. His father who I fondly call Chachu (uncle in Urdu language) came out from the bedroom and also began hitting me. Soon one of their relatives also joined them. They ganged up against me, threw me against the wall and beat me up.”
Ijaz alleged that when he ran out of the house, his boss chased him in a car. “It was hot outside as it was mid-afternoon. I stopped at a street corner and called my brother, asking him to come and take me to a hospital. I felt severe pain in the left hand. In the hospital the doctors did an X-ray and the report showed I had multiple fractures and three broken bones in the left hand.
Police intervention
“When the hospital staff asked me who hit me, I told them all that had transpired. They called my manager and his family to the hospital. Later the police was also called. My boss was arrested and kept in jail for a night,” said Ijaz who has been working with the company for 10 months.
The hospital has quoted Dh15,000 for an operation to fix his hand. “A disc needs to be fitted in my hand to fix the broken bones. I don’t have that kind of money,” he said.
Ijaz was discharged from hospital on July 4.
XPRESS visited him in Ras Al Khaimah where he is staying with his brother. “I am scared to stay in my company accommodation as I think somebody will come and kill me. Every day, my boss and his family members call me on my cellphone, threatening to file a criminal case against me if I don’t drop all charges against them. I have refused as I want justice and want to see them punished for what they have done to me.”
When XPRESS contacted Ijaz’s employer, he admitted to getting into a fight. “He was never regular at work. Though he was on my visa, he illegally worked for someone else. I told him he should not be doing this, but he would not listen. When he asked me for advance I lost my cool as he wasn’t even working with me,” Mohammad Shakeel said.
