India Times: Fresh complication in the process has crashed for now the hopes of early release of Sanket Pandya, who is stranded in Iran since December. Family members claimed that Pandya and his colleague were not being allowed to leave Iran in the wake of a case filed against his company in Iran.
Pandya, a resident of the city, is stranded in Zanjan in Iran after his passport was allegedly taken away by the officials of a company for which he had gone to execute a project. Pandya works for a Goa-based engineering company that had bagged a contract at Zanjan.
Pandya was able to reach out to Indian embassy in Tehran and it did help him with documentation to move out of Iran. However, it now transpires that the authorities in Iran have not allowed him to leave the country. “We have come to know that the Iranian company has filed a case against Pandya’s company and this is the reason behind the delay,” Pandya’s brother-in-law Dilip Pathak said.
Pathak said the lawyers of Pandya’s company had left for Iran and were trying to sort out the matter. “The issue is between the two companies and the employees should not suffer,” Pathak said.
Pandya and Mohammedhussain Khan form Haryana had gone as a part of a team to Zanjan. While other employees of the company were allowed to go, passports of Pandya and Khan were allegedly taken away by the functionaries of Zanjan-based company on December 17 under the pretext of completing some paperwork.
Pandya and Khan were kept at a guesthouse in Zanjan. Vadodara MP Balkrishna Shukla took up the issue with the central government, including the prime minister’s office and the external affairs ministry besides top brass of the BJP. Pandya’s wife Preeti also wrote to Congress leader Sonia Gandhi. Pathak met Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel, too, and sought his help.
The Iranian company had last week denied that it had their passports. It also discontinued the hospitality of the two Indians following which they left for Tehran. The Indian embassy arranged for Pandya’s stay.
