Forum urges Pak PM to release Ansari

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, December 12

The Pakistan India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy has appealed to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, to release Mohammed Hamid Ansari, on December 16 when his jail term is over. 

The plea signed by Dr Syeda Hameed and Tapan Bose, co-chairpersons, and Vijayan MJ, general secretary, PIPFPD India, said Hamid, now 33, and a resident of Mumbai, who had crossed over to Pakistan through Afghanistan to meet a women friend he had come in contact through internet, was at fault but he and his family had paid a heavy price for his naïvete. 

“We believe that Hamid Ansari’s immediate release will send a positive message as it will come in the background of the opening up of the Kartarpur corridor. PIPFPD and many other campaigners for Hamid’s release have consistently maintained that while Hamid Ansari violated the Passport Act, he is innocent of the charges made against him. He entered Pakistan ‘illegally’ to meet his love in Kohat. They met over social media. Hamid was sentenced to three years in January 2016. He was already in custody for a long while before that. Hamid and his family have paid a heavy price for this. They should not be made to suffer more. Hamid’s immediate family, consisting of his parents and brother, have been in turmoil for the past several years.” Hamid’s mother retired as a professor. His father was a banker and now practices as a lawyer, and his elder brother is a dental surgeon. 

Hamid was detained in 2012 and sentenced to three-year jail term in 2015. The Peshawar High Court on August 7 this year, directed the authorities to deport Hamid immediately after the completion of his sentence, if he is not required for any other case. 

The Forum requested the Pak authorities to hand over Hamid to the Indian High Commission officials on the day of the completion of his sentence. “We request that he should be released and repatriated the same day or the next day via Wagah border. We laud Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan for his valuable gestures so far made towards making peace with India and in the region. We appeal to him to make sure that in Hamid’s case too, a humanitarian approach is followed,” the press note stated.