NEW DELHI (Staff Report) – Following the return of Indian woman Geeta, who remained stuck in Pakistan for 15 years, chances high for earliest return of 15-year-old Pakistani boy Ramzan who is stranded in Indian city of Bopal for last three years.
According to Indian foreign minister Sushma Swaraj, PM Narendra Modi wants to send Ramzan back home as a return gift to Pakistan for Geeta.
Sawaraj has met the boy in child care centre in Bopal, he resides these days, and assured him that he will soon travel to Pakistan.
I met #Ramzan in Bhopal today. pic.twitter.com/CulabdSbrC
— Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) November 22, 2015
“If Pakistan accepts Ramzan a citizen, Indian side has no problem in sending him back,” she said in a post at Twitter.
He wants to be with his mother. If Pakistan accepts him as their citizen, we have no problem in sending him there.#Ramzan
— Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) November 22, 2015
The move comes days after Indian High Commissioner in Pakistan met the mother of Ramzan in Karachi.
Meanwhile Indian Prime Minister’s Office has confirmed that Narendra Modi sent a letter to President’s Office to begin an initiative to send home Ramzan in a bid to thank Pakistan for returning Geeta.
Ramzan, who crossed border into India in 2011 from Bangladesh, traveled to several Indian states before he was held by Indian Railway Police in Bopal in September 2013.
Upon interrogation Ramzan told policemen that he was a Pakistani and his father took him away from his mother to remarry in Bangladesh. After being tortured by his stepmother Ramzan crossed into India in a bid to return to his mother in Karachi. But he never succeeded for not having his travel documents.
Since then Ramzan has been residing in Childline Bopal chapter, where director Archana Sahay tried helping him but to no avail.
Indian ministry of external affairs (MEA) had given up on Ramzan’s case. In an official communication with Childline, MEA has said that his is a “closed file” with no documentary evidence to prove his Pakistani citizenship.
Ramzan’s mother, Razia Begum, after learning that her son is in India, contacted Pakistan human rights activist Ansar Burney with a request for his release and return.
She also uploaded a video appealing to the Indian government to send her son home. Burney had mailed a copy of the passports of Ramzan’s grandparents to the Indian embassy and Childline for help.
