A long walk home: Pakistani men released from Indian jails speak

‘I crossed over with the consent of the Indian guards to meet Shahrukh’.

LAHORE:

Crossing the Indo-Pak border without the proper documentation is a crime which many citizens of both countries have committed unwittingly. For 44-year-old Yaqoob Shah, the border crossing was no error of judgment.  Shah, one of the eight prisoners that were handed over to Pakistani authorities on Wednesday, crossed the border to meet Indian actor Shahrukh Khan.

Speaking with The Express Tribune at an Edhi Home in Gulberg, where the men are temporarily housed before they can be sent home, Shah said, “I walked to Wagha from Minar-i-Pakistan. I crossed over with the consent of the Indian guards from a village near Wagha to meet Shahrukh. I requested the Indian guards to let me through as I wanted to meet the film star. I told them I had no passport.” Shah said that the guards agreed to let him pass through the barbed wire but a few moments later the very same men arrested him and took him to the police station. Shah was given a six-month sentence for his border crossing.

Shah, however, was released after two-and-a-half-years. “I spent two extra years in the Amritsar jail. I was unable to approach Shahrukh even though I tried through some friends. I made up my mind that I would return to my wife and four children as soon as I was released,” the star struck fan said.

“There are 44 Pakistanis in the Amritsar jail who have completed their sentences. The Indian are refusing to release them. Many of them have gone mad,” he added. Shah said he felt he was lucky to have gotten his freedom ‘so early’ as many Pakistani spend far more than his two-and-a-half-years. “Pakistanis are kept in separate lock ups and looked down on. I urge people to never cross the border without the proper documents,” Shah added.

Twenty-three-year old Nasibzada, from Dir district, is another of the recently released men. “I crossed the border in 2007 from Tharparkar. I used to watch Indian films and had dreams of being a film star,” the young man said. Nasibzada said that the minute he crossed over he was arrested. He added that even though he finished his sentence in 2009, he was kept locked for two years in cells at a Gujarat jail. “There are 25 to 30 Pakistanis including three women and some children in the Gujarat jail. Their files have long been closed but they languish in the jail,” he said. Nasibzada said that many of the prisoners had asked him to alert Pakistani authorities regarding them.

He said that he had learnt to speak and write Gujarati during his time in the jail. “I took Gujarati books from Pundits who visited us. People there did not speak Hindi.” He said that there was high tension in the jail when the two countries’ cricket teams battled it out. The Sania Mirza-Shoaib Malik marriage was also the cause of much consternation, according to Nasibzada.

“I had handcuffs on when I was on the Indian side as I crossed the border, they came off. Nothing feels better than being free,” he said. The young man said he had taken tea after four years and had nearly forgotten the taste of it.

Arif, a 35-year-old from Shakargarh said he had crossed the border when he was drunk. For this, he said, he had spent four years in jail. “It was the worst time in my life.” Mohammad Yar, another Pakistani prisoner, has almost become deaf. He said he remembers he was from Pakpatan but doesn’t remember the contact numbers of his family members. The other four Pakistanis released include Mohammad Usman, 70, from Karachi, Mohammad Saghir, 41, from Lahore, Abdul Hameed, 47, from Narowal and Zulfiqar, 28, from Kahror. They have been sent to their homes. The rest await that moment as their families are being traced.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 13^th, 2011.