LAHORE – A five-year-old boy who was taken to India by his father finally reunited with his mother in Pakistan, after a gap of almost a year.
Iftikhar reached the Wagah border crossing from where officials of the High Commission of Pakistan handed him over to his mother.
In March 2016 Iftikhar’s father took him to India. The man, who belongs to Jammu, had lied to his wife that he was taking Iftikhar to a wedding with him.
However, he took the boy to Dubai. Subsequently, the boy’s mother, a Pakistani, filed a case in the Indian courts for his custody.
After the case was taken up by the Pakistani High Commission, it was proved that Iftikhar was a Pakistani by nationality and so the verdict was given that he be returned to his mother in Pakistan.
The verdict on the case was given in May last year but due to the burgeoning border tension it took eight more months for the mother to get the emotional news of seeing her son.
Earlier this month, Pakistan returned an Indian soldier who had crossed the Line of Control (LoC) on the night of the alleged surgical strikes, as a “goodwill gesture”, but after branding him as a “deserter”.
“Pakistan has handed over Sepoy Chandu Babulal Chohan, to Indian authorities this afternoon at 1430 through Wagah border,” the Foreign Office said in a statement on Jan 22.
