Why India is silent on the deaths of its migrant workers in Qatar

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Editor's note: Trigger warning: A part of this story contains a graphic account. Thota Dharmender saw a man die for the first time in 2019. “He fell from 50 metres,” he recalls. “The iron rods from the building’s foundation pierced his stomach. It was all over in seconds.” The man, a 45-year-old from Bangladesh, was working at a port construction site in Qatar. He wasn’t wearing a safety harness—none of the workers were. The contractor, whose job it was to ensure that they all wore safety gear, said he was a victim of his own negligence. His family didn’t receive any compensation. Over the next year, Dharmender saw several others die. Some for not wearing safety gear, others because of long hours in the 50°C heat. But the FIFA World Cup was coming up, and the pace of work on the infrastructure projects they were involved in couldn't slacken. Grief wasn’t allowed on the company clock. Dharmender returned to his village in Telangana in mid-2020 owing to a family emergency. He didn’t go back after. It was around then that news organizations …