| The falling dollar, which has hit incomes of expatriate workers in the Gulf countries, today created a near-violent situation in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which came close to deporting nearly 90 Indians who led the first-ever demonstration for a wage hike in Dubai on Saturday. |
| The Indians, picked from around 4,000 demonstrators hailing mainly from South Asia, are among the 159 workers detained in a labour camp on the outskirts of Dubai. They are mostly from Punjab and Rajasthan. |
| The Indian Consul General in Dubai told the government in New Delhi that 90 Indians had been booked for rioting and were expected to be "deported to India any time.'' |
| There was panic among officials over initial reports about the UAE deporting about 4,000 workers, a majority of them Indians, who had participated in the Saturday demonstration for better wages and living conditions. |
| In New Delhi, official sources said the fall in the dollar and the rising cost of living in Dubai and many other cities in the Gulf countries had soured the dream of Indian workers who had gone there to make it big. |
| "House rentals in Dubai have escalated over the last one year and living there has become unaffordable as many workers are finding it difficult to make two ends meet, leave alone save money,'' said an official. |
| The trouble began when Dubai-based Pauling Middle East Company refused to pay the wages it had promised, as a result of which several thousand manual workers struck work. Some of them reportedly indulged in vandalism and pelted buildings, a police station and passing vehicles with stones. |
| The strike spread to three other areas in the city-state, with local press reporting involvement of 3,100 workers. Police moved in and returned the strikers to their accommodation blocks. |
| Another 2,000 construction workers were on strike till late Tuesday, staying in their housing compound in the middle of the desert. |
| According to officials cited by local press, the protesters were demanding an unspecified increase in wages, which are as low as 500 dirhams ($136) a month, improved transport to construction sites and better housing. |
| Such protests are rare in the United Arab Emirates, where strike action is banned and workers are not allowed to form unions. |
| The workers' right to stay in the country ends with the job contract. UAE officials said they would to cancel the labour cards of those who refused to go back to work in order to deport them. |
| India's ambassador to the UAE, Talmiz Ahmed, told Gulf News the matter was being "resolved amicably" and that only those charged with causing damage to public and private properties would be prosecuted. |
| Officials from the Dubai police and the Indian embassy were not reachable to confirm the reports. An estimated 700,000 Asians, mostly from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, work as construction workers in the UAE, where only around 20 per cent of the four million people are UAE citizens. |
| In March last year, 2,500 labourers rioted at the site of Burj Dubai, which has since become the world's tallest skyscraper. |
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