Authorities in Delhi are to investigate the death of an Indian domestic servant who died in transit from the Middle East after she lost her passport and was forced to spend five nights sleeping in an airport. 
 
 Officials from India’s foreign ministry are to fly to Muscat, Oman, amid allegations that the local Indian embassy did nothing to help the woman after she became stranded. Reports say doctors believe Beebi Lumada, 40, who may have been suffering from a mental illness, died from a heart-attack triggered by stress. 
 
 A war of words has broken out since the death of Ms Lumada a week ago. While India has pointed the finger of blame at the Omani airport authorities and the airline which refused to allow the woman to board the flight to India, police in Muscat have said Indian officials did nothing to help the woman replace her lost documents. 
 
 “The foreign minister has said that a senior official will go to Muscat. After the high-ranking official returns, we will know more,” a foreign ministry spokesman said last night. “At the moment, all there is are media reports.” 
 
 Ms Lumada was apparently making her way home to southern India from Muscat where she had been working as a servant, her employment reportedly coming to an end because of emotional difficulties she had been facing. Her visa for Oman had been cancelled and she boarded a flight from Muscat for Doha in Qatar where she was due to catch a connecting flight to Chennai. 
 
 However, while on the flight to Doha she lost her passport. Officials with Qatar airways said that without her passport she was unable to be admitted for the flight on to Chennai and so, according to airline policy, was flown back to Muscat. However, when she arrived at Muscat without her passport and with her visa cancelled she was not permitted to reenter the country. 
 
 Ms Lumada reportedly spent the next five nights in the airport’s transit area, with Qatar Airways providing her with food and bedding. However, last Friday, Ms Lumada suffered what was described as a seizure and died after medics rushed her to the city’s Ibn Sina hospital. 
 
 India has accused both Qatar Airways and the authorities at Muscat Airport of negligence. The minister for overseas Indian affairs, Vayalar Ravi, told Indian media: “The airport and airline authorities should have been more responsible. Valid papers are necessary but not more than a person’s life.” 
 
 But police at Muscat airport said the Indian Embassy failed to help Ms Lumada by failing to quickly provide her with a temporary passport. “We informed the Indian Embassy on Monday to issue her a temporary passport to travel back to India. We reminded them the next day and the day after, but each time they said they were doing it but did not do it,” an unidentified officer told The National newspaper. 
 
 “If they acted fast enough, she would have probably been back home alive since last week.” 
 
 There is no precise data on the total number of workers from South Asia employed in Gulf countries millions of labourers from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh travel there for years on end. Such workers have virtually no rights and employment conditions are often appalling. 
 
 Human rights campaigners have demanded an investigation into the death of Ms Lumada, whose body has been returned to India. “The Omani authorities must launch an investigation into her death,” said Amnesty International. “[We are] concerned that despite recent amendments to the 2003 labour law establishing legal rights to workers, domestic workers, many of whom were foreign migrants and women, are not covered by the law and lack adequate legal protection.” 

 Probe called into death of Indian maid at Oman airport 
 
 Ms Lumada was forbidden from leaving the confines of the airport 
 
 Rights group Amnesty International has called for a probe into the death of an Indian maid who was stranded at Muscat airport for five days. 
 
 Forty-year-old house maid Beebi Lumada reportedly became mentally stressed during her ordeal last week. 
 
 She died of a seizure while on her way to hospital on Friday. 
 
 Ms Lumada was travelling from Muscat to Madras on a Qatar Airways flight. But she lost her passport while in transit and was sent back to Oman. 
 
 Amnesty said that her case raised "serious concerns" that need to be investigated by Oman and the Indian embassy in Muscat. 
 
 Indian embassy officials in Oman have refused to speak to the BBC about the case. But in comments made to the local press, they have admitted to "lapses" in dealing with it. 
 
 'Cardiac arrest' 
 
 Ms Lumada was not allowed to leave Muscat airport as she did not have a passport. Efforts by Qatar Airways to find her employers in Oman came to nothing. 
 
 A Qatar Airways spokesman said that they alerted the Indian embassy on 4 October and were given repeated assurances - not fulfilled - that officials would come and visit the stranded passenger. 
 
 The woman was reported by witnesses in the airport to have been extremely stressed during her stay in the transit lounge and worried that she may have to remain there indefinitely. 
 
 "Severe mental stress could have caused her cardiac arrest", a senior doctor in Oman is quoted as saying. 
 
 Indian Embassy officials in Muscat refused to speak to the BBC's Tamil service about the case. 
 
 But India's Ambassador to Oman, Anil Wadhwa is quoted by newspapers in Muscat as saying that he regretted that "procedural delays" resulted in "delayed help for the stranded passenger". 
 
 The embassy says that it tried to issue the maid with an emergency passport, but could not do so because the airline did not provide her details. 
 
 The embassy says that arrangements have now been made to send the body of Beebi Lumada back to her relatives in India.
– An Indian maid died of what doctors say was a stress-induced heart attack after being forced to spend five nights sleeping in a transit area at Oman's Muscat airport. The 40-year-old lost her passport on a connecting flight between Oman and Qatar, and she was sent back to Oman instead of being allowed to board her flight to India. Oman refused to readmit her and the various authorities involved are blaming each other for her death, the Independent reports. Indian politicians say that airport and airline authorities should have done more to help the stranded woman, while Omani officials say the Indian embassy failed to act on repeated requests to provide her with a temporary passport. Witnesses say the woman, who was provided with food and bedding, became severely stressed as days at the airport went by and feared she would be there indefinitely, the BBC reports. Amnesty International says the case raises serious concerns that need to be investigated by both countries.