AMRITSAR: Hamid Nehal Ansari, the Mumbai man who was released from a Pakistani jail after six years for alleged espionage charges, crossed over to the Indian side at the Attari-Wagah border in Punjab on Tuesday.
A weary looking bespectacled Ansari, in a jacket, muffler and a pashtun cap, was welcomed by his parents, Fauzia and Nehal Ahmed Ansari who were waiting at the border.
Stepping on to the Indian side, the 33-year-old former teacher at the Mumbai Management College, along with his family knelt down and touched the soil of the motherland with their foreheads.
As Ansari, stood up, he first hugged his mother and then embraced his father in an emotional reunion.
His mother said, “His release is a victory for humanity. My son had no bad intentions. He went with noble intentions. He shouldn’t have gone without a visa, but initially went missing and was later caught and framed.’’
“We were ourselves not sure whether he was dead or alive, because there was no contact between us,” she said and added that through his friends over the social media, especially Facebook and with the help of the media people in Pakistan they came to know that their son had stayed in a hotel for some time before disappearing.
Pakistan had alleged that Ansari, an engineer, was an “Indian spy” who illegally entered the country. Islamabad accused him of involvement in anti-state crimes, forging documents, and jailed him.
For the family, it was an ordeal since November 2012 when he left the country for Kabul for employment and then was reported “missing”.
He reportedly became friendly with a Pakistan girl on social media and reached Kohat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to save her from a forced marriage.
Sushma’s plea
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had in August 2016, asked the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad to seek Consular Access to Hamid Nehal Ansari