Emotional scenes unfold as Uzma Ahmed, forced to marry a Pakistani at gunpoint, returns to India

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj received Indian woman Uzma Ahmed on her return in New Delhi on Thursday. Uzma told the media that she was forced to marry a Pakistani man at gunpoint in Buner in Pakistan.

Uzma Ahmed is reunited with her daughter on Thursday, May 25 after her ordeal in Pakistan. Uzma had petitioned the Islamabad High Court on May 12 requesting that she be allowed to return home to India urgently as her daughter from her first marriage in India suffered from thalassaemia -- a blood disorder characterised by abnormal haemoglobin production. 

Uzma, who is in her early 20s, hails from New Delhi. She had travelled to Pakistan earlier this month. She has accused Tahir Ali, whom she reportedly met in Malaysia and fell in love with, of forcing her into marrying him in Pakistan on May 3. The court also returned her the immigration papers which she had said was taken away by Ali, who had submitted the documents after being told by the court to do so.

Uzma had been staying at the Indian mission in Islamabad after she accused Ali of marrying her at gun point.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj welcomed Uzma back home, calling her 'India's daughter'. Uzma, accompanied by Indian mission officials, crossed the Wagah Border near Amritsar on Thursday morning.

Narrating her ordeal on her return today, an emotional Uzma said, 'It's easy to enter Pakistan but nearly impossible to leave that place.' 'Pakistan is a 'maut ka kuan' (well of death). I've seen women who go there after arranged marriages.

They're miserable and living in terrible condition. There are two, three, even four wives in every house,' she said. She said 'Buner', the area where Tahir, the Pakistani man who married her at gunpoint, took her after giving her sleeping pills, was like a 'Taliban-controlled' region. Uzma claimed had she stayed there for a few more days she would have been dead.