Indian national Hamid Ansari freed from Pak jail, to be repatriated to Mumbai
Islamabad, Dec 18 (IBNS) : Indian national Hamid Nehal Ansari was on Tuesday released from a Pakistani jail to be repatriated to India, six years after he was detained by the country's intelligence agencies and subsequently sentenced to three years' imprisonment for possessing a fake Pakistani identity card, according to a media report.
Ansari, a 33-year-old Mumbai resident, was lodged in the Peshawar Central Jail after being sentenced by the military court on December 15, 2015. His three-year jail term ended on December 15, 2018 but he was not able to leave for India as his legal documents were not ready.
A Peshawar High Court (PHC) bench on December 13 had directed the interior ministry to make arrangements for the deportation of the Indian national within one month of the completion of his three-year prison term on Dec 15.
The PHC bench had observed that government departments should make all arrangements before the completion of Ansari's prison term, as keeping him in detention beyond the sentence would tarnish the image of the country.
Ansari had gone missing in 2012 from Kohat. A freelance Pakistani journalist who began investigating his disappearance from Kohat, Zeenat Shahzadi, had also gone missing soon after. Her kidnapping was considered by human rights activists as a case of “enforced disappearance”.
It was only then in 2015 that Pakistan admitted to having Ansari in their custody. He was summarily put through proceeds in a military court as he was accused of espionage despite his family, back in India, crying helplessly that their son had probably crossed over from Afghanistan to meet a woman he befriended online and then fell in love with.
It later emerged that Ansari had been in the army's custody and convicted by a Field General Court Martial on charges of espionage and anti-state activities on Dec 15, 2015. He had been sentenced to three years.
He had reportedly denied the charges and claimed that he had visited Pakistan to help a female Facebook friend in Kohat who claimed to be in trouble.
Shahzadi was recovered in October 2017, but has been off the radar along with her family ever since.
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