A month after the Pakistan Army acknowledged that > lovelorn Indian engineer, Hamid Ansari , is in their custody and is being court-martialled for undisclosed charges, his distraught parents now see a silver lining in their tumultuous battle as they seek consular access to their 30-year old son.
After running from pillar to post for more than three years to know the whereabouts of Hamid who had set off to bring home his love — a Pashtun girl from Kohat in West Pakistan — his mother, Fauzia Ansari, can’t help but smile looking at the pile of files, which have letters seeking help written to everyone from the United Nations and the Red Cross to the Indian President and Prime Ministers of the two countries. Her hopes have been raised by the case of Geeta who returned to India 10 years after accidentally crossing over to Pakistan and also by the “positive” meetings she has had with Union External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.
“It’s been a month since we received the official confirmation that Hamid is alive. I have written to the Pakistan High Commission requesting to provide us with consular access and issue visas so we can meet him. We have been told by the MEA that they have taken up the case and the process can take up to 90 days. But, we do not want to wait till the upper limit of three months,” said 55-year-old Fauzia who had come from Mumbai to Delhi with her husband Nehal Ansari to do the “usual rounds” of the Pakistan High Commission, the MEA office and lawyers.
Life has changed 180 degrees for the Ansari family ever since their younger son Hamid left home in November 2012 for Afghanistan on the pretext of a job interview at Kabul Airport. In reality, Kabul was just a stop in his planned route to reach the girl in Kohat — an arrangement which was suggested to him by a few Pakistani friends he made on Facebook. They allegedly had suggested Hamid to illegally cross the “porous” border from the Afghan side.
“We are physically, mentally and financially broken. We used to stay in our own home at Versova in Mumbai, but now we stay in a small rented house. My only goal in life now is to bring my son home, so I took voluntary retirement in May 2014. It was a big decision as I still had three years of service,” said the father, Nehal Ansari, who was an Assistant Manager in the Bank of India. The same year Ms. Fauzia who continues to work as a Hindi lecturer in a junior college in Mumbai had to undergo an ankle surgery after she met with an accident while crossing a road in Delhi.
Hamid’s elder brother, Khalid Ansari, is a dentist and is unwilling to get married now, complained Mr. Nehal. “My younger son was to return by November 12 or 15, 2012 and Khalid’s wedding was scheduled in December which was later called off. Since then he insists to marry only once his brother is back,” he said. While Mr. Nehal and his wife begin to have lunch together, he recalls how he used to interact with the two sons over their Sunday lunch. “To help somebody is sadka (charity), it earns you savab ( spiritual reward)” is what he used to tell them.
“I think he took it too far. Hamid has no one to guide him there. I am worried if he is trying to hide the true picture even now during interrogation to save the girl’s reputation. As then he will be in trouble again,” said Mr. Nehal. Even as the Ansari family is hopeful of getting consular access to their son, sources in the Pakistan High Commission say that the case may not follow the regular course given the trial is taking place in the military court, and the charges though undisclosed are “very serious”.
The High Commission has stated that it has forwarded Fauzia’s request to the concerned authorities in Islamabad’s Indian office.
