ISLAMABAD: An Indian woman, who came to Pakistan to marry a man from Buner and went ‘missing’ last week, has still not been recovered.

However, the Foreign Office said on Sunday that the woman had approached the Indian embassy, asking that she be repatriated.

The spokesperson told Dawn: “the Indian High Commission informed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that an Indian national… had approached them with [a] request to be repatriated to India. According to the Indian High Commission, she claimed to have married [Tahir Ali] and alleged that she later came to know that [he] was already married and had four children.”

Earlier on Sunday, Secretariat Police said the security officer at the Indian Embassy had confirmed the woman is present inside the embassy, while another embassy official told Dawn the woman had sought refuge there.

Husband files complaint with Secretariat police

“She took refuge at the Indian High Commission on May 5. The high commission is in touch with her family in India and Pakistan’s Foreign Office,” he said.

Tahir Ali, a resident of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, claimed he met the woman – who he says is now his wife – when was working as a taxi driver in Malaysia eight months ago. According to an application lodged at the Secretariat Police Station, the couple got married in Buner on May 3, two days after she came to Pakistan via the Wagah Border.

The woman is said to have called her brother in New Delhi to tell him about her marriage and he reportedly suggested they come to India for their honeymoon. The brother told her to meet a man named Adnan at the Indian embassy, who will sort out their visas for the trip, Mr Ali said in the complaint.

In his application, he claims his wife asked for Adnan at the embassy and that a while later, his wife was taken inside by a man through Gate 6.

“I waited and waited and then at 7pm, I asked at the embassy gate if my wife was inside. They told me no one was inside,” he said in his complaint.

He said that he then returned to the main gate on the shuttle bus, but none of the three phones the couple had handed over were returned.

Talking to Dawn, Investigation Officer Azhar Mehmood said the embassy could not be formally contacted over the weekend and that further developments will have to wait until today (Monday).

However, SHO Secretariat Police Station Hakim Khan told Dawn the security officer at the Indian Embassy, Bal Krishna, had confirmed the woman was in the embassy building.

“He refused to produce her and said the matter will be dealt with through the Foreign Office. Hopefully, the embassy will contact the Foreign Office on Monday and the police will also be informed,” he said.

Mr Khan added that even if the woman does not want to live with her husband, the embassy has to hand her over to the police or produce her in front of a magistrate.

“If she records her statement in front of a magistrate under section 164 and says she wants to go back to India, she will be handed over to the embassy and will be sent back to India. If she wants to live with her husband, she will be allowed to go with him,” he explained.

Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2017