LAHORE: Months after being taken to India due to ‘mysterious circumstances’, a five-year-old Pakistani boy was reunited with his mother at the Wagha border crossing on Saturday.
Emotional scenes were witnessed at the border where Pakistani High Commission officials handed over five-year-old Iftikhar to his mother.
It was in March 2016 when Iftikhar’s father, who hailed from occupied Jammu and Kashmir, took him to India after allegedly lying to the mother that he was to take him to a wedding.
The father instead ‘forcefully’ took the boy to Dubai and then to held Kashmir. The boy’s mother subsequently filed a case in an Indian court for his custody.
While a verdict on the case was issued in May 2016, it took no less than eight months for the two to unite owing to the growing tensions at the border between the two neighbouring countries.
However, as soon as the case was taken up by Pakistani High Commission amid proof that Iftikhar is a Pakistani national, the verdict to return the boy to the country was issued.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit said that bringing the child back was particularly difficult given the fact that he was in occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
“Besides cooperation from the Indian side, we were also offered help by some of our Kashmiri brothers.”Basit added: “We hope that cases of all other Pakistanis who are in Indian jails see positive progress.”
