Guwahati: A 36-year-old woman from central Assam’s Nagaon and her minor son, who went missing in November, have reportedly landed in a Pakistan jail for illegally entering that country, police said.
In a complaint lodged with the Nagaon police station, Azifa Khatun, the mother of the woman mentioned that her daughter and grandchild went missing from their home on November 26, 2022.
She was allegedly duped by an Afgan national and taken to Saudi Arabia first on the pretext of marriage using forged documents and then to Pakistan.
Nagaon SP Leena Doley said the woman, who lost her husband two years ago, sold off her property and left Nagaon in November with a man she had met recently and had promised to marry her.
Doley said they came to know about her whereabouts last month when the woman’s mother received a letter from a law firm in Pakistan informing her that her daughter and grandson were lodged in the district jail of Quetta in Pakistan’s Baluchistan.
She received a letter in December from a law firm in Pakistan by post stating that the two were arrested for crossing the borders without any legal travel documents and were lodged in the Quetta district jail.
“The woman was able to make calls to her mother over social media platforms using a phone given to her by someone from the jail staff. She told her mother she was duped with the promise of marriage and taken to Saudi Arabia using fake documents and from there to Pakistan,” HT quoted SP Doley as saying.
Khatun had approached the police again for “recovery of the woman from Pakistan and handing her over to the family.
The matter has been referred to higher authorities as it concerns two countries and a decision can be taken only “at an appropriate level,” a police official said.
Doley said the woman and her son have been kept in separate jail wards. She added the man, suspected to be an Afghan national who took them to Saudi Arabia and then Pakistan, is lodged separately in the same prison. “The woman and her son are stated to be in good condition and not tortured.”
The woman’s mother filed a petition in the Delhi high court and also wrote to President Droupadi Murmu seeking the repatriation of her daughter and grandson.
On Friday, the high court dismissed her petition saying it was not within its jurisdiction. It asked her to approach the Gauhati high court.