The Hamid Ansari Story: Cross-Border Love, Espionage & a Pak Jail

Hamid Ansari was released from a Pakistani jail on 18 December, and crossed the Wagah border to return to India.

File image of Indian citizen Hamid Ansari. Ansari has been in a Pakistan jail since 2015, after authorities found him travelling with a fake ID and accused him of being an ‘Indian spy’. 

(Photo: Canva/The Quint)

Hamid Nehal Ansari, an Indian citizen who spent six years in a Pakistani jail after he was detained in 2012, crossed the Wagah border on Tuesday, 18 December, to return to India.

33-year-old Ansari was met at the border by his family members in an emotional reunion.

Ansari, who was released from Mardan jail on Tuesday, had been detained by Pakistan’s intelligence agencies in 2012 for “illegally” entering the country from Afghanistan, reportedly to meet a girl he had befriended online.

He is expected to fly to his hometown, Mumbai, on Wednesday, 19 December.

It's been six years since Ansari was caught with a fake Pakistani ID in his pocket in Kohat, a town near Peshawar. He had travelled to Kohat, Peshawar "illegally" in order to find and rescue the woman he loved from being married off to someone else. On being caught, a military court in Pakistan had found him guilty of espionage and convicted him for allegedly being an Indian spy.

As the Ansari family finally met their son after six long years, here’s a look back at the story of a cross-border love that led him to a Pakistan jail.

From Versova to Peshawar

Ansari was 27 when he left home for Kohat in Pakistan. With a degree in engineering and an MBA, Ansari was reportedly working as a management teacher for the education of Afghan students when he was caught and taken away by the Pakistani authorities in 2012, according to Fauzia in a Facebook post.

Ansari lived with his parents – Fauzia and Nehal – in a rented apartment in Versova in Mumbai. Fauzia is a teacher at a school in Mumbai, and Nehal is a banker.

In an earlier interaction with The Quint, Fauzia had said that Hamid had left for Kabul on 4 November 2012 under the pretext of having received a job as an airport manager in Afghanistan. Although his parents had advised him against the move, fearing for his safety, he had not relented.

He was in constant contact with his parents every day for the next few days, until 10 November. He told them that he would return back to Mumbai in two days. But right after this, Ansari went missing, which we now know, is because he had been picked up by Pakistani authorities.

But what was the real reason behind Ansari’s decision to visit Kabul? In an investigative piece by Scroll, Ansari’s parents said that after he had gone missing, they logged into his Facebook account and checked his emails. They found out that he had been talking to a Pakistani woman for two years, and seemed to be in love with her.

But the woman’s sister had reportedly gone and ratted out about Ansari’s affair to her parents.

What Made Ansari Illegally Cross the Border?

The woman’s father announced that she would immediately be married to someone else in Pakistan, and the woman, now desperate, allegedly asked Ansari to come and rescue her.

“I found several of Hamid’s conversations on Facebook after he went missing. The girl was desperate; she wanted to be rescued, and I could see that that the desperation had built in Hamid too (sic).”

Fauzia Ansari, in conversation with <i>The Quint</i>

Ansari began to plan. He wasn’t able to contact the woman he loved, so he managed to track down another woman in Kohat. Ansari asked her to find out what was happening with the woman. But she couldn’t.

He also reportedly wrote several letters to the Pakistan High Commission and even requested Mumbai-based activist Jatin Desai of the Pakistan-India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy for help. Neither of the options worked.

On the advice of his friends, he had made arrangements online to travel to Kabul, and then, infiltrate into Pakistan. He was informed that the Pakistan-Afghanistan border did not have any serious checking and his friends told him that they would help him with a fake Pakistani ID.

Chats between Ansari and his online friends in Pakistan. (Photo courtesy: Pooja Changoiwala)

Who Caught Hamid Ansari?

Ansari had reportedly managed to sneak into Kohat, according to reports of the incident in Scroll.in. Later, it was found that on the day Ansari had gone missing, he had checked into a hotel in Kohat under a fake name and had been arrested by police within an hour of his check-in. This information was unearthed by a Pakistan-based journalist named Zeenat, who had reached out to Fauzia for information on Ansari.

Zeenat later found out that Ansari was then placed in the custody of the Pakistani military and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), who had accused him of being an “Indian Spy” and locked him up, Fauzia had told The Quint. 

Surprisingly, Zeenat, a 26-year-old reporter of Daily Nai Khaber and Metro News TV channel, went missing herself on 19 August 2015, when some unidentified men allegedly kidnapped her while she was en route to her office in an auto-rickshaw from her home in a populated locality of Lahore.

Human rights activists had claimed that she had been kidnapped in a case of “enforced disappearance”. After two years of going missing, the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (CIED) President Justice (retired) Javed Iqbal had confirmed on 19 October 2017 that Zeenat had been rescued from an area on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, PTI reported.

When Ansari’s parents learnt of his arrest, fourteen months after it took place, they went from pillar to post to seek legal help and finally crossed paths with Qazi Muhammad Anwar, a renowned lawyer in Pakistan. Anwar helped file their habeas corpus petition in the Peshawar High Court.

Anwar had also said that Lahore High Court had been informed that Ansari faced a court martial on unspecified charges. The battle in the court had been going on since.

The Struggle for Hamid’s Rescue

Speaking to The Quint, a day ahead of the official end of Ansari’s jail-term, Fauzia had said that her family had hoped that the Pakistan court wouldn’t agree to the one-month extension of Ansari’s detention in jail, as recommended by the Interior Ministry of Pakistan.

“But we’re helpless at this point...all the communication is happening through our lawyer and I know that this (one-month extension) was also questioned, but they (the court) are saying they are following procedures.”

Fauzia Ansari to <b>The Quint </b>

Fauzia’s statement had come before the announcement by the Pakistan government, that her son would be returning home to India on Tuesday, 18 December.

File image of Fauzia Ansari, mother of Hamid Nehal Ansari. (Photo courtesy: Pooja Changoiwala)

Speaking about how she has not seen her son since he first left Mumbai to travel to Kabul, Fauzia had said that she had tried extremely hard for the first few years to secure a Pakistan visa, so she could meet him.

However, she realised that this wasn’t a possibility, and, instead, focused all her energy on communicating with the necessary court of law. Fauzia also said that the Ministry of External Affairs had done a lot of work on the case, on behalf of their family.

“Our government has asked the Pakistan government at least 95 different times for consular access (to Ansari).”

Fauzia Ansari to <b>The Quint </b>

In November 2017, Minister of External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj had said that the MEA had made 52 requests to Pakistan for consular access to Ansari.

Recounting her experience before her son’s return to India, Fauzia had said:

“Last month we were in Delhi, and we met with several MEO officials, who have assured us that as soon as the paperwork for his deportation is drawn up from Pakistan government, there won’t be any delay from the Ministry’s side to get him back home.”

Ansari’s Release a Relief: MEA

The Ministry of External Affairs on Monday, 17 December, had released a statement and said that the news of Ansari’s release is a relief. Here’s what the MEA said:

"We have received a note from Pakistan today  that they are releasing Indian national Shri Hamid Nehal Ansari tomorrow.

It is a matter of great relief, especially for the family members, that six years of incarceration of the Indian civilian in Pakistan jail is coming to an end.

We would like Pakistan to take action to also end misery of other Indian nationals and fishermen whose nationality has been confirmed and who have completed their sentences, but continue to languish in Pakistan jails.

We also await Pakistan's response to the visit of Indian medical team to meet mentally unsound prisoners with a view to  facilitate their nativity verification and subsequent repatriation.

We hope that Pakistan would respond and organize an early visit of the Joint Judicial Committee so that the issues of prisoners can be dealt with in a humanitarian and timely manner."