JAIPUR: Thirty-seven-year-old Sita Ram, who was stuck near Najaf in Iraq, is still frightened. When he went to Iraq in August last year, he had boarded the same plane taken by some of the Kochi nurses, later kept hostage by ISIS. While he returned home on Friday the nurses returned on another flight on Saturday.

However, the reason for their return was more or less the same. Sita Ram cannot forget images of destruction in the war-torn country. Life became hell for 1,200-odd Indians working with a private construction company there.

"I would have died had I stayed there any longer. I will never go back to Iraq," said Sita Ram, a resident of Nawalgarh tehsil of Jhunjhunu district. A month ago, tension gripped the Indian workers in the factory in Iraq when they started receiving calls from India to know about their well being.

"We were unaware of what was going on in Iraq. Only when our relatives called us that we came to know that it was becoming difficult for us to stay there," Sita Ram said. "Later I would hear sounds of blasts in the night.

The company asked us not to move outside. If we did so, it would be at our own risk. Though the violence-hit areas were quite far from the place where the company was situated, there was a fear that it could spread to this place," he said.

He added that Najaf was not far away from Karbala, where the battle between Iraqi forces and ISIS was taking place. The workers decided not to work. There were around 800 workers, who told the company that they all want to go back to India.

"The company never wanted us to go to India. They tried to persuade us not to leave. They tried to convince us that everything was fine in the area," said Sita Ram.

Another resident of Jhunhjunu district, Suba Singh, who worked in the same company and returned in the same flight, said, "A resident of Sikar district Shravan Kumar, who was with us in Najaf was so stressed that he died of heart attack. After his death, the situation started worsening." Singh said that the company was also very irregular in paying salaries.

Some workers were not paid for three months. As a result, the workers had to strike work and after that they would get the salaries. He said when the situation deteriorated during the war, officials from Indian embassy arrived at the company.

"They contacted the company officials. They managed to take back our passports from the company officials and made arrangements for our return to India," said Singh. For Singh, working outside his country has not been a pleasant experience.

In 2004-05 he went to Libya and was forced to return as there was unrest in the country. .

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