LAHORE, Nov 24: Sitting back on his chair on the lawn of Edhi Homes, Gulberg, while orphans run around playing, 50-year-old Gulzar Ahmed resembles a dignified grandfather overseeing the youngsters.

But try to engage him in conversation and the former Pakistan Railways worker from Sindh mumbles incoherently about what brought him to the care of the orphanage after a two-and-a-half-year stint in an Indian jail.

“The BSF border guards called me over, and I went,” he says, staring into the distance but never looking at this reporter in the eyes. He looks down, adding, “They don’t treat Pakistanis well over there.”

When pressed further, he recounts being beaten badly and humiliated over the course of his two-year incarceration.

Now back in Pakistan, Edhi officials are still desperately trying to trace his family so he may go home.

He says that he would like to resume working, though such a desire appears to be wishful thinking in his present state.

Similar stories are recounted by three other men at the Edhi Homes. Eight of the prisoners were received on Nov 15.

While half were immediately sent home, others have no place to go or their families don’t want them back.

Thirty-year-old Gulzar from Mardan says he crossed the border “to see India” and was kept locked up for almost five years. “I fell out with my family, that is why they did not collect me,” he says.

Another former prisoner, nicknamed “Buffalloo”, is aged 35. Almost childlike in his demeanour, he smiles while displaying numerous scars on his skull, legs, and face – the result of electric shocks given by Indian jail staff.

M Subhan (25), the last and youngest former prisoner, speaks incoherently and there is little hope for his future, according to Shahbaz Mirza, the Edhi Homes supervisor.

Mirza is unequivocal in his condemnation of the Indian jail staff, adding that Indian prisoners released from Pakistani jails were usually seen in perfect health.

On what causes the prisoners to come back mentally disable, he said: “Some of them may already have been mentally weak when they left – but is it possible that all of them were?” — ISSAM AHMED