Mumbai couple reaches Amritsar, seeks son’s release from Pak jail

GS Paul

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, December 3

At a time when Amritsar hosts the Heart of Asia conference, a mother appeals for early release of her son who is lodged in the Pakistan jail.

Mumbai-based Fauzia Ansari and her husband Nehal Ansari reached Amritsar with the intervention of Folklore Research Academy’s president Ramesh Yadav, seeking appointment with Pakistan PM’s Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz, who reached here today to take part in the conference.

Fauzia, a lecturer in a junior college in Mumbai, carried a placard saying — “Hon Aziz Saheb You are on a peace mission. Let mother meet her son”.

Though there is no official confirmation of the meeting with Aziz so far, they stood outside the venue with these placards.

On November 4, 2012, IT engineer and MBA Hamid Nehal Ansari (32) had gone to Afghanistan on a tourist visa. Three days before his return, he managed to enter Peshawar illegally on November 12, 2012.

His intention was to meet a Pakistani girl he had reportedly befriended on Facebook. He was reportedly accommodated by an acquaintance in Pakistan, but was nabbed by the Pakistan police on November 14, 2012. He is missing since then.

Nehal, former manager of a public bank who sought voluntary retirement to search his son, said it was through his e-mail accounts that they came to know about the Pakistani girl.

Following the habeas corpus petition filed on January 13, 2016, the Peshawar High Court of Pakistan declared that Hamid was in the custody of the Pakistan army and was awarded three-year imprisonment. In August, he was attacked by inmates in Peshawar Central Prison.

Till date, Hamid was never been given consular access nor allowed to talk to his family in Mumbai nor the parents were given visa to go to Pakistan to see their son.

“We have tried our level best to bring back our son. We requested the Pakistan High Commission officials to grant visa, wrote to Aziz’s office and even our External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj intervened, but we are still awaiting positive result,” he said.

Admitting the mistake of her son, she said, “It’s been four years and he is still languishing in Peshawar jail. His Pakistani friends arranged his stay in a hotel from where he was arrested. Our immediate demand is that we should be facilitated a visa at least to meet him.”