Day after return from Pak, Hamid Nihal Ansari meets Sushma Swaraj
New Delhi, Dec 19 : Hamid Nihal Ansari, the software engineer who has returned home after spending six years in a Pakistani jail, met External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Wednesday and narrated his ordeal.
Officials said 33-year-old Ansari, who came back to India on Tuesday, became emotional while talking about the difficult phase of his life in Pakistan.
Ansari, who was accompanied by his mother and other family members, also thanked Swaraj and the Ministry of External Affairs for persisting with the case and taking it up with Islamabad.
The Mumbai resident, who returned to India after crossing the Wagah-Attari border, was imprisoned in the Peshawar Central Jail after being sentenced by a military court on December 15, 2015. According to official sources, India issued 96 notes verbales to Pakistan seeking consular access to Ansari. The decision to release him was on account of relentless pressure from New Delhi, they said.
Shortly before his arrival on Tuesday, Ansari's mother Fauzia Ansari told reporters that the prayers of the family and of all those who wished for his safe return had been answered.
"I am immensely happy today. I don't have words to describe my feelings," she said. His father, Nihal Ansari, said, "It is a new dawn for us".
Ansari was arrested in 2012 for illegally entering Pakistan from Afghanistan, reportedly to meet a girl he had befriended online. His jail term ended on December 15 but he was not able to leave for India as his legal documents were not ready.
On Thursday, the Peshawar High Court gave the Pakistan government a month's deadline to complete his repatriation process.
In reply to a habeas corpus petition filed by his mother Fauzia Ansari, the high court was informed that he was in custody of the Pakistan Army and was being tried by a military court.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Chakankar's resignation forwarded to CM Fadnavis, says Sunetra Pawar
_vb_90.jpeg)
Mumbai (PTI): NCP chief and Maharashtra deputy CM Sunetra Pawar on Saturday said she has forwarded Rupali Chakankar's resignation as state women's commission chairperson to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for acceptance.
Chakankar, a leader of the Nationalist Congress Party, on Friday tendered her resignation after facing flak from opposition parties over her association with rape-accused 'godman' Ashok Kharat.
Following a meeting with CM Fadnavis, who asked her to step down, she handed the resignation letter personally to Sunetra Pawar late in the evening.
"Chakankar has tendered her resignation considering the current circumstances and ongoing investigation. To ensure that the probe is conducted in a fair and transparent manner, I have forwarded her resignation to the Chief Minister for further process," Pawar said in a statement.
Appointed as chairperson of the Maharashtra State Women's Commission first in October 2021, Chakankar was given another three-year term in 2024.
Kharat, who heads a temple trust at Sinnar and had several political leaders visit him over the years, was arrested by Nashik Police on Wednesday for allegedly repeatedly sexually assaulting a woman.
As per the complainant, he called her to his office sometime in 2022 after her marriage, claiming that his astrological predictions point to a threat to her husband’s life and she needed to perform certain rituals to ward it off. He then gave her a sedative-laced drink and raped her, the woman alleged, claiming that he raped her multiple times over the next three years.
_vb_09.jpeg)
