New Delhi,
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj Wednesday met Hamid Nihal Ansari, the Indian national who returned to the country on Tuesday after spending six years in a Pakistani jail.
Ansari, accompanied by his mother and other family members, thanked Swaraj and the external affairs ministry for helping in his extradition.
MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted the video of the meeting with the caption: Welcome home, son!
Welcome home, son!
Indian national, Hamid Ansari returns home after six years of incarceration in Pakistan. EAM @SushmaSwaraj warmly welcomed him in Delhi today. pic.twitter.com/vM4HXF2ORc
— Raveesh Kumar (@MEAIndia) December 19, 2018
The ministry had apparently issued 96 notes verbales to Pakistan seeking consular access to Ansari.
The 33-year-old, who crossed the Wagah-Attari on Tuesday, became emotional while talking about his jail term in Pakistan, officials said.
“Mera Bharat mahaan, meri madam mahaan, sab madam ne hi kiya hai (My Bharat is great, my madam is great. Madam has done everything),” Mr Ansari’s mother Fauzia, who accompanied him for the meeting, said.
Mumbai based Ansari, 33, was apprehended by Pakistan’s intelligence agencies in 2012 after he crossed over to Pakistan from Afghanistan where he had reportedly gone to meet a woman he had befriended online. In 2015, a Pakistani military court sentenced him to three years’ imprisonment for possessing a fake identity card. He was lodged in the Peshawar Central Jail on December 15 that year. His jail term ended on December 16.
