Nishant A Bhuse for Mid-day

Feb 10: Sumati Christabel Kotian (42), a maid who was employed with an Indian family in Dubai, was rushed to Cooper Hospital immediately after she reached Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Mumbai airport today.

Kotian arrived on an Air India flight from Dubai at 12 am. Sitting in a wheelchair, Kotian told customs officer Ancient Thomas, who also is a social worker, “I can’t walk, please help me.”

Said Thomas, “She said she wanted medical assistance and I could see several burn marks and bruises on her body.” Thomas took the initiative to get her to hospital. 

At Cooper, the Sahar police were called in to take her statement. In the FIR, Kotian said she knew her employers as they were neighbours in Udipi. Deepak Lewis, an engineer and his wife Sarita, a nurse in a private hospital in Dubai, hired Kotian for Rs 5,000 per month.

“Whenever they were dissatisfied with the quality of my work, they would scald d me with a hot iron. In the last eight months, there have been several instances when I haven’t been given food or water. Morever, they only gave me Rs 6,000 instead of Rs 8,000 as salary,” says Kotian at  the hospital.

Her husband Christabel had to sell their ancestral property in Udipi to fund the air tickets to Dubai to get Kotian. “I was shocked to see her.

There were assault marks all over her body and she could barely walk,” says Christabel.

Added Kotian, “I have worked with Arabs in Muscat, who were really nice people. I am shocked that Indians could do this to another Indian.” The Sahar Police told MiD DAY that a complaint is being registered against the couple.