After 23 years stranded in Lebanon, Punjab man returns home

Chandigarh: When Gurtej Singh travelled to Lebanon to earn a better living for the future of his family in Punjab, little did he know that he would have to wait 23 years to reunite with them.

A native of Mattewara village in Ludhiana district, Singh moved to Lebanon in 2001 with five to six people from his village. While the others returned home following the outbreak of a war in the country in 2006, Singh became stranded after losing his passport.

“I went to Lebanon in 2001 for work to give a better life to my family,” said Singh, now aged 55.

“(When the war broke out) I also wanted to return to India. I went to the Indian Embassy several times but they wanted some proof (to issue a duplicate passport),” he told PTI on Saturday.

He finally returned to India on September 6 after AAP Rajya Sabha member Balbir Singh Seechewal raised the issue with the Ministry of External Affairs.

Seechewal said he took up the matter with the authorities concerned, following which a copy of Singh’s lost passport was made available and he could finally return.

Singh admitted that, having lost his passport, he lived in constant fear of being caught.

He said he used to think how he would return to India in the absence of a passport. His family in India also tried to facilitate his return but in vain.

Unable to get a duplicate passport, Singh said he thought he might never see his family again.

“I used to think how I would go back to India,” he said.

Before moving to the Lebanon — where he worked as a labourer at a vegetable farm — Singh was employed in a factory manufacturing sweaters in Ludhiana.

When he went to Lebanon, Singh said his elder son was six years old and the younger one was three.

“Now, my elder son has a six-year-old son,” he said. His younger son is yet to get married.