Fearing for his safety: Ansari wants to be moved to Peshawar

Indian national sentenced for espionage seeks remission in sentence

PESHAWAR: Lawyers for an Indian national, in prison on espionage charges, have requested that their client be shifted from his jail cell in Mardan to one in Peshawar.

Indian national Hamid Nehal Ansari’s lawyer Qazi Anwar submitted a request in this regard to the Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday citing security concerns for his client.

“Due to the military operations in Bajaur, a number of militants have been locked up in the Mardan prison who may attack him,” Anwar stated in his miscellaneous petition.



The petition was taken up by a two-judge bench of the PHC comprising PHC Chief Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Ijaz Anwar.

“His life in danger,” Anwar pleaded before the court.

However, Deputy Attorney General Musarratullah opposed the plea of the petitioner, arguing that the superintendent of the Mardan jail had already submitted a report that Ansari has been kept in a secure cell.

“He is in a separate cell, away from other prisoners,” the DAG assured the court.



The lawyer added that the 27-year-old Indian’s parents wish to meet with him, however, Pakistani authorities were not granting them permission.

Ansari, who is currently languishing in a cell in the Mardan Central Jail, has filed a petition with the PHC requesting that he must not be treated as a spy since he was not involved in any “anti-state activities”.

In his petition, he contended that he came to Pakistan to meet a girl in Kohat whom he had befriended on social media.

Ansari had been arrested by security forces in Kohat in 2012 and has been in prison ever since.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 27^th, 2018.