Punjab farmer gets one-month jail in Pakistan

Amritpal Singh, a 23-year-old farmer from Punjab's Ferozepur district, who had inadvertently crossed over to Pakistan, has been sentenced to one-month imprisonment by a court in the neighbouring nation, his father Jugraj Singh said on Saturday.

Jugraj Singh urged the Centre and the Punjab Government to take appropriate steps to bring back his son to India. Amritpal, a resident of Khaire ke Uttar village in Ferozepur district, went missing along the India-Pakistan border on June 21 after he went to tend his farmland located across the barbed fencing near the border outpost (BOP) Rana under the Border Security Force (BSF) supervision.

He failed to return before the gate was scheduled to close around 5 pm.

The BSF personnel later found human footprints heading towards the Pakistani side, raising the possibility of an unintentional border crossing.