Mumbai engineer jailed in Pak for 5 years returns

A Mumbai-based software engineer, who claimed to have inadvertently crossed to Pakistan in 2004 by Samjhauta Express while he was suffering from depression and was jailed there for five years, was repatriated on Thursday.

Bhavesh Parmar (32), a resident of Vile Parle area in Mumbai, crossed over to India from the Zero line here and was received by his mother Hansa Kanti and Mumbai MLA Krishna Hegde who helped the family to take up the matter of his repatriation with Indian and Pakistan governments. After having spent five years in detention in Lahore's Kot Lakhpat Jail from 2007, Bhavesh was given Emergency Travel Certificate by the Indian Embassy in Islamabad for his return to India.

Narrating his ordeal, Bhavesh said: "I was detained in Kot Lakhpat Jail after being convicted under the Foreigners Act for want of mandatory travel papers. I had slipped into depression after the death of my father due to cancer and don't know how I reached Amritsar, boarded the Pakistan bound Samjhauta Express train and landed in Pakistan territory."

"I don't know when I boarded in the Pakistan Bound Samjhauta train and went into deep sleep.

I got up when Pakistani officials shook me up after the train reached Pakistan and only then I realised that the train I had boarded was going to Pakistan."

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