‘India’s daughter’ Uzma returns home from Pakistan: Sushma Swaraj

New Delhi/Lahore: A young Indian woman, who said she was forced to marry a Pakistani man at gun point, on Thursday returned home via the Wagah Border with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj saying she felt “sorry for all that you have gone through.”

Describing Uzma Ahmad as “India’s daughter”, Swaraj welcomed her to India. “I am sorry for all that you have gone through,” she tweeted. Uzma, who is in her early 20s, hails from New Delhi. She was allowed by the Islamabad High Court yesterday to return to India following a plea she filed with the court requesting its directive after her husband Tahir Ali took her immigration papers.

Accompanied by Indian mission officials and escorted by Pakistani police personnel, she crossed into India through the Wagah Border crossing near Amritsar. “The Indian woman was happy and excited to leave for her homeland,” a Pakistan Rangers official told PTI. Media was not allowed to interact with Uzma. She touched the ground after she entered the Indian territory. Yesterday, the high court handed over her original immigration documents after Tahir submitted them to the court a day earlier.

Uzma had petitioned the court on 12 May requesting it to allow her to return home urgently as her daughter from her first marriage in India suffered from thalassemia - a blood disorder characterised by abnormal hemoglobin production. Tahir had petitioned the court, requesting that he be allowed to meet “his wife”.

A single bench of Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani heard both the pleas and after hearing their arguments, he allowed Uzma to return to India. She has said she was forced to marry Tahir at gunpoint. The two reportedly met in Malaysia and fell in love. Uzma reached Pakistan on 1 May and travelled to the remote Buner district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province where she was married to Tahir on 3 May. Later she came to Islamabad and took refuge in the Indian High Commission.

According to the law in Pakistan, her lawyer can continue to represent her in the case she has filed in the high court and she can return to pursue the case.