Ahmed Patel assures help for return of 2 Indians stranded in Iran

VADODARA: Congress president Sonia Gandhi's political secretary Ahmed Patel today assured to take up with the External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, the issue of two Indians stranded in Iran.

The family of Vadodara resident Sanket Pandya, who has been illegally confined in Iran with an Indian colleague Mohammed Hussain Khan (hailing from Haryana), today met Patel and requested him to ensure their release.

"Pandya's family members met me at Valia town, about 95 kms from Vadodara, today, and briefed me how the Iranian authorities have been refusing to grant visa to Sanket and his colleague Mohamed," Patel told PTI over phone later.

Pandya (36) and Khan, working with an India-based private company, had been allegedly confined to a guest house in Iran's Zanjan city by an Iranian private engineering firm.

Their passports had been taken away by the firm since over a month following a business dispute with the company. On January 27, both of them were released and were kept in a hotel in Tehran.

The Indian embassy located in Tehran, the capital of Iran, has completed all the required formalities and also recommended the concerned Iranian authorities to grant them visa after their release from over 40 days of illegal confinement, Pandya's family members said.

After a dispute with Goa-based Powers Engineers India Pvt, over commissioning of a power project in Zanjan city, the Iranian company had kept them under illegal confinement since December 17 and had taken away their passports under pretext of stamping them.