Hyderabad: Meet Ahmed Bin Mahfooz, the saviour of foreigners stranded in India

Hyderabad: Tough time filled with hardships not confined itself to the people of any country, community or diaspora. It comes to test us all irrespective of bonding and boundaries. The bad break may shake-off sooner or later but what remains left behind is the people always listen to their better angels and stand for others selflessly at their testing times.

Here we are talking about a person Ahmed Bin Mahfooz, a Hyderabad and Maharashtra based volunteer, having been designated by different foreign embassies to carry out rescue operations and help foreigners stranded in India and Indians run into rough weather abroad.

Having been credited with slew of rescue operations in his name, Ahmed – who earned commendations several times for his spontaneous relief activities, is still fond-of reaching out distressed people through relief campaigns of which few are even breathtaking and life threatening too. According to him, the biggest rescue operation of his life was carried out in the year 2003 when a serial bomb blast rocks the Mumbai city that lived 52 people dead and other 300 injured.

"As the panic grips the Mumbai city, foreigners from different countries found rushing to book their flights only to return safe to their homelands after the blasts that took place on 23 August 2003," he said adding that, "It is at this point of time, I was tasked to help the stranded foreigners mostly from the Middle East," recalled Ahmed.

Well-versed in Arabic speaking, Ahmed liaison between the embassies of both India and foreign countries to ensure safe return of the foreigners. "Over 1500 to 2000 foreigners from UAE, Saudi Arabia and Yemen and other gulf countries were made to return back safely to the countries. From booking their flights to confirming their seats besides helping them to board the flights right from their locations to the airport, everything was done in a matter of four days. Missions of foreign countries responded well in time and arranged back to back flights to ensure safe return of their people," he explained.

Another important rescue operation, he said, was carried out in Karnataka where one of the foreign students went on a mission in Kaveri River leaving the other teammates completely unnerved. "I have spent over 15 days in a densely wild jungle in Karnataka to rescue the foreign students who run into rough weather while enjoying sightseeing," recalled Ahmed.

The breathtaking rescue operation, he said, was carried out in the year 2015 when one of the foreigners was found missing in a densely wild Chamrajnagar Jungle in Kanakapura district of Karnataka. A team of 12-16 Yemen and Sudani students, born and brought up in Saudi Arabia and came to pursue vocational courses in Karnataka, went to a hill station in Chamrajnagar Jungle on a tour. However, one of the students, a Saudi national, was reported drowned in the river Kaveri near the hill station.

"Upon receiving a call from the students, who were well known to me, I quickly took a flight from Aurangabad to reach Kaveri River site within 24 hours where the boy was found missing. However, after 13 days of rescue operation, buttressed with the support of the Natural Disaster Response Force (NDRF) team from Vijayawada we returned back empty handed as we found no traces of the missing boy despite extensive search for two long weeks," added Ahmed.

Though all the other foreign students were brought back to safer locations, the young boy's disappearance remained a mystery. The incident opened such a deep wound that it keeps rankling the heart of the parents in Saudi Arabia. The grief was so profound that the parents never accepted a condolence for the missing boy believing that their son is still alive," bemoaned Ahmed.