Pakistani man to be sent back on December 26 after 10-year jail term

india

Updated: Dec 22, 2018 20:09 IST

A 40-year-old Pakistani man, who has been staying at a Bhopal police station since the last nine months after his 10-year jail term got over here, would be repatriated to his home country on December 26, officials said on Saturday.

The repatriation of Mohammed Imran Warsi is taking place after over a week of software engineer and Mumbai resident Hamid Nihal Ansari being released by Pakistan after he served six years in a jail in that country on espionage charges.

Warsi, 40, has been living at Shahjahanabad Police Station in Bhopal since March when he walked out of a jail in the city after completion of his sentence, as he was awaiting completion of legal formalities.

Warsi had been convicted on charges of conspiracy, cheating and forging documents under provisions of the Passport Act and Official Secrets Act by a local court in 2008.

“We have to send Warsi to the Wagah border by December 26 where he will be handed over to Pakistani officials after completion of legal work,” Shahjahanabad city superintendent of police Nagendra Kumar Pateriya told PTI.

Office of the district foreign registration officer (FRO) Dharmveer Yadav has sent a letter and other documents to the Shahjahanabad police station to facilitate the repatriation of Warsi, Pateriya said.

For Warsi, Shahjahanabad police station has become home. Though he is not under detention, Warsi can’t leave the station. Police personnel provide him meals and look after his daily needs. He sleeps inside the police station during the night, officials said.

Shahjahanabad police station is a nodal station where foreigners to be repatriated wait for completion of their legal formalities. Pateriya said Warsi got married to an Indian woman and the couple have two sons — a 13-year-old and an 11-year-old.

They currently live in Kolkata where Warsi had lived for around four years before moving to Bhopal, he said.

Last Tuesday, Hamid Ansari, who was arrested in Pakistan in 2012 for allegedly entering that country from Afghanistan reportedly to meet a woman he had befriended online, was repatriated and handed over to India at the Wagah-Attari border.