IHC accepts Indian national’s request to return home

The Islamabad High Court on Wednesday gave permission to Uzma, an Indian national, to return to her home country.

Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kiyani was hearing petitions filed by Uzma and her husband, Tahir Ali. While the former had requested to be repatriated to India, Ali had asked to be allowed to meet his wife.

The court assured Uzma that she was free to return to India at any point and would be escorted to the Wagah Border with police security.

During the hearing, Justice Mohsin Akhtar asked Uzma if she wished to speak to her husband but she refused.

The events leading up to Uzma’s disappearance
Uzma, 22, met Tahir Ali, a resident of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while the latter was working as a taxi driver in Malaysia eight months ago, according to a request for help lodged at Islamabad’s Secretariat Police Station by Ali.

The two contracted a court marriage on May 3 in Buner, two days after Uzma arrived in Pakistan via the Wagah border.

After the couple tied the knot, Uzma called her brother in New Delhi to relay the news to him. Her brother asked her to visit India on her honeymoon and told her she could find a man named Adnan at the Indian embassy who would be able to sort out their visas for the trip, Ali alleged.

“At the Indian embassy window, she asked about Adnan. A while later, a man came out and took her inside through gate number six. I waited and waited, and then at 7pm I asked at the embassy gate if my wife was inside. They told me no one was inside,” Ali claimed.

He had added that he then returned to the main gate on a shuttle bus, and noted that none of the three phones surrendered to the embassy by the couple at the time of entrance were returned to him.

It emerged later that she had sought refuge in the Indian High Commission and requested to be repatriated back to India.

Uzma told a lower court that Ali had forced her to enter a Nikkah contract at gunpoint and subsequently subjected her to physical and sexual abuse. He also confiscated her documents, she claimed.

Source: Dawn