Mentally unsound man, who crossed over to Pakistan, returns home after 11 years

PTI, Jan 6, 2021, 9:19 AM IST

Mirzapur (UP: Punvasi Lal walked into home in Uttar Pradesh’s Mirzapur district on Tuesday, eleven years after he slipped into the Pakistani territory.

Lal, who is mentally unsound, had inadvertently crossed into the Pakistani side when he lost the way along the Indo-Pak border in Rajasthan in 2010, police said.

He spent the next 11 years in a jail in Lahore after he was charged for unauthorised entry, they said.

Lal returned home on Tuesday after completing all legal formalities, Superintendent of Police, Mirzapur, Ajai Kumar Singh said.

Lal, accompanied by his sister and brother-in-law, was welcomed by officiating District Magistrate Avanish Kumar Singh and Ajay Kumar Singh.

The process for Lal’s return to India had started five years ago when a letter in this regard from the central government was received by the then Varanasi DM but the administration could not locate his native place, in-charge of Local Intelligence Unit (LIU) Indra Bhushan Yadav said.

In 2019, it was restarted and in 2020 his native place was found in Bharuhana village under the Kotwali Dehat police station area, he said.

His sister Kiran identified him through a picture shown to her and she said he had been missing for over 10 years, Yadav said.

The establishment of Lal’s identity paved the way for his return to India.

Eventually, he was handed over to the BSF by the Pakistani authorities at the Atari border on November 17, 2020, Yadav said.

On Tuesday, the district authorities sent a police constable along with his sister and brother-in-law to Amritsar to bring him home, he said.

On arrival, Lal was brought to the Police Lines where he was welcomed, Yadav said, adding that he was later sent to Lalganj along with his sister where she lives.