ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Friday directed the Foreign Office (FO) to make a decision within five days regarding Uzma Ahmed’s application to return to India.

Through her counsel, Uzma filed a petition in the IHC seeking the court’s help in returning to India, exemption from police reporting and security from Islamabad to Wagah.

She has cited the foreign affairs secretary and her alleged husband, Tahir Khan as respondents in the petition.

When the case was taken up, her counsel informed the court the petitioner was currently residing in the Indian High Commission and wants to go back so she can see her daughter from an earlier marriage who is a thalassaemia patient.

He told the court that the petitioner feared arrest by the local police and that she should therefore be exempted from police reporting.

Indian citizen has asked IHC for help in returning to India, exemption from police reporting and security from Islamabad to Wagah

IHC Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani remarked that the petitioner has a valid visa and will not be arrested just because she is an Indian citizen.

The counsel said that “Uzma is granted visa to the extent of Buner only”.

In the petition, Uzma has claimed that Tahir ‘sexually assaulted’ her in ‘connivance with his friends’. She has said she was intimidated and compelled to marry Tahir, who is already married and has four children.

The petition goes on to say that Uzma managed to escape and intimated officers of the Indian High Commission when she went there.

Uzma reportedly told the officials she will be killed by Tahir or will commit suicide if she is not allowed to stay in the high commission.

The counsel said the Indian High Commission has requested the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to facilitate the petitioner and issue her duplicate immigrations sheets expeditiously, which is a pre-requisite travelling document along with a visa to present before the immigration officials at Wagah Border in Lahore.

He added that the ministry did not reply to several request made by the petitioner through the Indian High Commission in Islamabad.

Meanwhile, the first secretary at the Indian High Commission who was accompanying Uzma, Piyush Singh was caught taking pictures of the judge and the court proceedings in the courtroom of Justice Kayani.

A police official, Syed Jaffar Hussein Shah, took notice and seized the mobile phone of the senior Indian diplomat while he was taking pictures of the judge during the hearing of the case filed by the Indian citizen.

The IHC judge ordered for Mr Singh’s phone to be confiscated when the incident was brought to his incident.

He later ordered for the phone to be returned to the diplomat after he tendered an unconditional apology.

Published in Dawn, May 13th, 2017