A 51-year-old Indian man hanged himself from a signboard [last] Tuesday. The incident happened in Sanaya in Al Ain Industrial Area.
Premchand Govindan had worked as a mason for a contracting company for the past 12 years and was planning to return home to India within a few days as his visa was about to be cancelled by his employer. He is from Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, and is survived by his wife and two sons, who are in senior school.
Govindan’s body was found by his room-mates early Tuesday morning after they began searching for him as he was nowhere to be found. “All four of us, staying in the room, went to sleep at the same time around 11pm on Monday. In the morning, we found our room door ajar and Govindan was missing,” said a room-mate, who was also a colleague.
“His body was hanging from one side of a huge signboard on the ground floor of the building where we stay,” said the room-mate, who asked not to be named. He added that the body was not visible from the outside of the building.
“It completely baffles us. We have no idea why he might have done this. He had packed his bags to go home and bought stuff for his family even the day before yesterday,” he added. Autopsy reports have confirmed that Govindan committed suicide, an official source disclosed.
According to his colleagues, the contracting company they are working for is about to be closed down after the partner of the company, also an Indian from Kerala, allegedly left the country eight months ago over a financial loss.
“Initially it was fine since we had sub-contracted work to carry out. But now for the past four months we have been out of work and without salary,” he said. Worrying While most others who were on the company’s visa had had their visas cancelled, only four workers were still on the company’s visa, he said.
“Out of the four, one person got arrested after his visa expired as he was overstaying. This was one thing that has been worrying us all. Just a few days ago, a company official told us that our visas would be cancelled in a few days and that we had to return to our country.”The room-mate added that he was working on completing the legal formalities and repatriating Govindan’s body.
The suicide comes close on the heels of the suicide of Indian community worker Vasudevan Sugathan on April 29. Sugathan, 61, hanged himself at a construction site in Masafi in Fujairah. The Sharjah resident had been employed as an X-ray technician at the Ministry of Health in Sharjah for the past 37 years. Among community members he was better known for his work as secretary of the Sharjah unit of Sevanam, an Indian community organisation, affiliated to the Indian Consulate’s Indian Community Welfare Committee.
It completely baffles us. We have no idea why he might have done this. He had packed his bags to go home and bought stuff for his family even the day before yesterday.” Dead man’s room-mate and colleague
