Released from Pakistan jail, Indian Engineer returns home after 6 years

December 18: It’s no less exciting and tense tale of cross-border love often depicted in Bollywood movies. Hamid Nehal Ansari, an engineer from Mumbai, who spent the last six years in a jail in Pakistan on espionage charges, has crossed the Attari-Wagah border to reach India. He was arrested on November 14, 2012 and sentenced to three years in jail in December 2015, was brought to the Attari-Wagah border where he crossed over to the Indian side around 5.30 pm today.

Hamid (33) was greeted by his family and many officials at the Wagah border. After entering India, he and his family knelt down and touched the soil with their foreheads. In an emotional reunion, his parents, Nehal and Fauzia, hugged their weary-looking son. After around five minutes of Ansari meeting his family, he was taken to an immigration office by BSF officials where he was questioned by Indian agencies. He was also not allowed to speak to media.

Hamid, a teacher at the Mumbai Management College, had entered Pakistan on November 12, 2012, to meet a woman whom he had befriended on social media. He was taken into custody by Pakistani intelligence agencies and local police in Kohat in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. A fake identity card in the name of Hamza was also found on him at that time.

When Ansari’s parents learnt of his arrest, fourteen months after it took place, they went from pillar to post to seek legal help and finally crossed paths with Qazi Muhammad Anwar, a renowned lawyer in Pakistan. Anwar helped file their habeas corpus petition in the Peshawar high court. In November 2017, Minister of External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj had said that the MEA had made 52 requests to Pakistan for consular access to Ansar, but India’s requests were turned down. It was only due to the collective pressure of the Indian government, Ansari’s lawyers and several activists that the Pakistan government was forced to agree to release and extradite Ansari to India, as per standard procedure.