Save our son, bring him home, urges parents of man in Pakistani prison

The Indian government must do everything it can to bring back Hamid Nehal Ansari, lodged in a Pakistani jail since 2012 and was attacked at least thrice by the inmates in recent months, his mother said.

“We have come to know through media and our advocate also informed us that such an incident has happened with Hamid,” said Fauzia Ansari, mother of the 31-year-old engineering and management graduate from Mumbai, who was sentenced to jail for three years by a military court for possessing a fake Pakistani identity card.

According to Ansari’s lawyer, the Indian prisoner was attacked at least thrice by inmates in recent months in a Peshawar jail.

“Our request to the Indian government is to help Hamid, who has not committed any heinous crime. His mistake was to go there with fake documents and he has already suffered a lot for this,” she said.

It has been four years that Hamid is in a Pakistani jail, she said.

“I don’t know what crime my son has committed. As per his chats with his friends from Pakistan on Facebook before he went missing, he crossed over to Pakistan to help a girl who was a victim of a social evil,” she said.

She also requested the Pakistan government to show mercy on him and send him back.

Hamid Nehal Ansari, a Mumbai resident arrested in 2012 for illegally entering Pakistan from Afghanistan reportedly to meet a girl he had befriended online, suffered injuries after he was attacked by inmates in the Peshawar Central Prison.

On Thursday, his lawyer told a Peshawar high court bench that Ansari had been kept in a death cell with a hardened criminal awaiting execution for a murder.

Ansari was attacked and injured three times over the last couple of months and shifted to the hospital for treatment, the counsel said, adding even the head warden would subject him to brutality and slap him on a daily basis without any reason.

He was convicted by the military court for possessing a fake Pakistani identity card and sentenced to three years imprisonment.

Chairman of Mumbai-based Observer Research Foundation Sudheendra Kulkarni termed the incident unfortunate and condemnable.

“Hamid Ansari has suffered this attack inside the Pakistani jail,” he said.

“We have been campaigning for his early release and return to India. We are convinced that he hasn’t committed any offence,” Kulkarni said.

“I urge authorities in Pakistan to ensure his safety and early return to India,” he said.