Doha resident and Indian businessman C K Menon has made a monetary assistance of Rs300,000 each (around QR18,000) to 46 Indian nurses who returned to their homeland after being held captive in a conflict zone in Iraq.
The nurses, who reached home earlier this week, will receive the money from Menon at a meeting to be hosted by Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy in the next few days. All but one of the 46 nurses hailed from Kerala while the other was from Tamil Nadu.
Speaking from India yesterday, Menon said he decided to make the monetary assistance to the nurses as many of them owed loans that they had taken from banks for their education.
Menon, who is also vice-chairman of Kerala government’s Norka Roots Company, said the assistance is being made to the nurses in recognition of services that the region’s Indian nursing community are providing to the residents of Gulf states and the countries in their immediate neighbourhood.
Replying to criticism that the money is being paid only for the first batch of nurses who returned to their home state, while the others who followed them have been ignored, the entrepreneur said those behind such criticism should understand the circumstances in which the group of 46 nurses were rescued from a conflict zone and how they were brought back to the country.
“Our enquiries found that most others who followed them quit Iraq only when there were signs of problems in the areas where they worked,” he said, explaining that the decision on the quantum of the award was taken by the government on the assistance of Rs15mn (over QR900,000) that he personally announced.
