India family desperate to find missing son who crossed into Pakistan to rescue a girl from an unwanted marriage

Mumbai: It may sound like the story of a knight in shining armour trying to save his lady love from being married off to another man. But what has gone terribly wrong here is that in the process, a young man from India has gone missing.

Blame it on his audacious plan to rescue the girl from an unwanted marriage or on the wily goading of a chat person on Facebook, he is now untraceable after crossing into Pakistan from Jalalabad, Afghanistan, at Torkham border.

The distraught parents of Hamid Nehal Ansari, a 27-year-old IT engineer from Mumbai’s Yari Road, say he went for a job interview at Kabul airport on November 4, 2012 from Delhi by Ariana Airlines on a tourist visa.

“We spoke to him on November 10 and knew he was in Kabul,” his mother Fawzia, a teacher, told Gulf News.

“After that there was no trace of him until he surfaced in Kohat, near Peshawar, Pakistan, in the house of one Attaur Rahman Awan on November 12 with whom he stayed for two or three days,” says his mother, choking with tears. Awan managed to put him up in a small hotel room in Kohat and that was the last he saw or heard of him.

Fawzia’s husband Nehal Ahmad Ansari, who works in a bank, says their family has been neither able to eat, sleep or do any of their day-to-day work since Hamid’s disappearance and the fear of not knowing what must have happened to him has left the family in torment.

Describing Hamid as an amiable, friendly, helpful and disciplined son, the parents believe their boy was misled and provoked into crossing the dangerous Afghan-Pakistan border particularly by one Facebook friend, Saba Khan, “who still is a mystery since we cannot contact this person at all”.

When he did not return by November 15 as expected and was inaccessible by phone, “we desperately started efforts to find out where he was”.

“Upon verification of conversation on Facebook, we could gather that he was eager to help this girl who was getting married against her will.” Except for Saba Khan, other Facebook friends have been contacted but no one knows where he is.

“We are moving heaven and earth to trace our son and are knocking at the doors of every authority of India and Pakistan and hope to see our boy soon,” says his father.

Helping them in these days of crisis is Vileparle legislator Krishna Hegde who had earlier helped the family of Mumbai resident Bhavesh Parmar secure his release.

“The family has written a letter to External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid even as an officer at the Indian High Commission in Pakistan informed us that they have looked at the details and so far there is no trace of him. “They are also looking at the jails in Pakistan,” Hegde added.

Hedge revealed that they have written to Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde asking him to hand over the case to either the Central Bureau of Investigation or Interpol.

“We have asked Viswas Nagre Patil, additional commissioner of police, west region, Mumbai for relevant papers from Oshiwara police station,” he said.

Inquiries were also made at Kabul airport “but they told us they have no records of those who come for interviews,” said Fawzia, who continues to live with hope in her heart and a prayer on her lips.