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Zepto techie stranded in Dubai reaches Oman, books ₹40,000 flight to Bengaluru
Kritika Kumari, a Zepto developer, reached Oman after almost a week of being stranded in Dubai.
A Zepto techie who had been stranded in Dubai since February 28 — when a major military escalation happened in the Middle East — has now managed to reach the capital of Oman and hopes to fly back home soon.
Kritika Kumari had been on a trip to Dubai when the United States and Israel carried out coordinated airstrikes inside Iran. In response, Iran launched a large retaliation across the Middle East. It fired hundreds of ballistic missiles, drones and cruise missiles at Israel and East countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
UAE’s Dubai, long considered a safe haven in an otherwise turbulent Middle East, also became a target of Iran’s retaliatory attacks. The drone and missile attacks on Dubai led to the closure of airspace over the city and the cancellation of hundreds of flights. (Also read: Indian-origin CEO stranded in Dubai slams US evacuation response: 'I feel demoralised and abandoned')
Zepto techie stranded in Dubai
On February 28, Kritika Kumari, a software developer at Indian quick commerce platform Zepto, revealed on X that she was in Dubai and worried about how she would travel back to India.
“The last attack that happened was just 4.5 km from where I am staying. Totally tensed and stressed on how I will go back home safe or if I will be able to go back,” she said in an X post.
Since then, she has been posting regular updates from Dubai, including visuals of empty roads, fighter jets in the sky, and photographs from her hotel.
HT.com has reached out to Kritika Kumari for a statement. This copy will be updated on receiving a response.
India via Oman
Like hundreds of other Indians stranded in Dubai, Kumari also sought alternative arrangements to fly back home. Many travelled for six hours by road to catch flights to India via Oman.
On Wednesday, the Zepto techie revealed that she, too, had managed to reach Oman and had booked a flight to Bengaluru.
Saying she had received several messages from fellow tourists about returning to India, Kumari revealed the way she reached Muscat, the capital of Oman.
“On Sunday night, 1st March, I applied for an e-visa for Oman from the Atlys app,” she wrote. “The visa arrived Tuesday afternoon, though it was late by 4-5 hours.”
“We were actually considering all the possibilities – should we stay or not – but yesterday’s incident triggered it, and we thought to get out of Dubai,” she said.
Kumari said that she was part of a group of five people who “booked all the services via an agent.”
An agent dropped them to the Oman border, where Kumari got her immigration formalities completed. A bus was parked there to ferry passengers between UAE and Oman, with each person paying 50 dirham as fare.
Kumari, however, called the bus a waste of time and money in her X post. “We took it but got off the bus and instead took a cab to get out. Immigration was faster when coming via car/taxi; this was 500 dirham for 5 people.
Overall the cab took 3.5k dirham for 5 people for the cab,” she explained.
The Zepto software developer ended her post by saying that she had booked a flight from Muscat to Bengaluru for ₹40,000, that would take off on Thursday morning.
