Union minister of state for external affairs V Muraleedharan on Saturday told the parliament that the government has seized passports of those Indians who have travelled to Yemen over the past few years breaching the travel ban to Yemen.
Years of infighting, civil unrest and a crippled economy is making this once-rich West Asian country a ‘failed state’. It is currently gripped in a civil war, that is also a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
India has banned travel to Yemen since 2017. In 2016, terrorists abducted priest Father Tom Uzhunnalil, a Kerala priest, from Aden, which led to the travel ban.
The minister said that 372 passports were seized and those were received in passport offices across the country. He added that 102 passports were released.
He reiterated that Indians will be permitted to visit Yemen under “specific and essential reasons” and provisions have been made for this and that it requires “prior approval of the Ministry of External Affairs.”
There have been several instances where people have been charged for travelling to Yemen. In 2022, 23 residents of Kerala, who were employed in Yemen also moved the Delhi High Court demanding the release of their passports.
In the same year, a migrant worker from Andhra Pradesh’s Kakinada was also booked for travelling and working in Yemen, the Times of India reported.
The Times of India in a report said that many men from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana travel to Yemen and find employment there despite the security concerns surrounding the country.
India has banned travel to Yemen and the direction cited by the government in 2017 reads: ‘Any Indian national who travels to Yemen in violation of this notification, shall be liable for action under section 12 of the said Passports Act, 1967 and the passport shall be liable for impounding or revocation, as the case may be, under sub-section (3) of section 10 of the said Act and Violation of the directions issued by this notification by any holder shall be liable for refusal of passport under section 6 of the said Act for a period of seven years from the date of revocation of such passport.”
The latest advisory reads: “Since it will still take time for normalcy to return to Yemen, Indian nationals are once again advised to refrain from undertaking travel to Yemen.”
(with inputs from Shalinder Wangu)
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