Mumbai resident, Bhavesh Parmar, who has been detained in a Pakistan jail for seven long years, is set to be released on Thursday, according to a communication from the Indian High Commission in Pakistan.
In an e-mail to MLA Krishna Hegde on Monday, an official of the Commission said: “I would like to inform you that we have been officially intimated by the Pakistan Foreign Office that he would be released at the Wagah-Attari border on October 25… We have made appropriate arrangements to make sure that he gets the necessary travel documents… The Ministry of Home Affairs has also been intimated to make appropriate arrangements to receive him at the border.”
Devastated by the illness and subsequent death of his father, Bhavesh had left home early in 2007. In a disturbed state of mind, he unwittingly found himself on the Samjhauta Express that took him to Pakistan. He was consequently arrested under Section 14 of the Foreigners Act in October 2007 for want of requisite papers and incarcerated at the Central Jail in Lahore.
Mr. Hegde told The Hindu that he would be going to the border along with Mr. Parmar’s mother, Hansa Parmar, to receive Bhavesh. He has also been writing to the Commission asking for the exact time when he would be released.
Bhavesh’s mother was “happy and excited” to see her son after such a long gap. “I am also a little worried. I have put so much effort in bringing him home. I wonder if he knows I did so much. What if he is upset thinking I did nothing to get him out? Plus, he wouldn’t have really received any treatment there,” she told The Hindu .
Ms. Parmar’s lawyer in Pakistan, Awais Sheikh, was in the process of getting his Indian visa to bring him home. “If he is with him, then I won’t travel to the border,” she said.
