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Pak national living in a Mumbai police station awaits deportation
For more than six months, Khan’s home has been the MRA police station near Crawford Market, where he whiles away his time serving tea to the officers. He has been trying to return to his family in Karachi for 18 months
MUMBAI: The Indian government’s diktat on the deportation of Pakistani nationals from India following the Pahalgam terror attack has rekindled hope for Nadir Karim Khan. The 65-year-old Pakistani leather merchant has been trying to return to his family in Karachi for 18 months; instead, he’s been held hostage by a ton of bad luck, a bunch of red tape, and a prison sentence for staying illegally in India.
For more than six months, Khan’s home has been the MRA police station near Crawford Market, where he whiles away his time serving tea to the officers, and staring blankly into space when he’s not looking at pictures of his family on his cell phone. If the Indian government’s determination to deport Pakistani nationals helps cut through the red tape, Khan could be on his way back to his wives and children.
Khan’s incredible story starts in November 2021, when he travelled to Kathmandu in Nepal, to deliver a large consignment of leather jackets. “I delivered the consignment to an importer there but the cheques they gave me bounced. So I approached the Kathmandu police to report the matter. Instead, I was assaulted and robbed of whatever I had left with me, including my passport,” says Khan, quietly, seated in a small room in the compound of the MRA Marg police station.
The government of Nepal also fined Khan for overstaying in the Himalayan country. With no way to raise the money, he approached the Pakistani embassy in Kathmandu but they did not help either, he says.
Khan’s next stop was India, from where he hoped to make his way back home. “I sold my mobile phone to fund my travel to India. I entered the country through the Sonauli (in Uttar Pradesh) border. Somehow, I managed to reach Gorakhpur and took a train to New Delhi in late October 2023,” recounts the 65-year-old.
Khan’s words sound rehearsed, having told his story countless times in the last 18 months – to the police, to the courts, and to anyone he believes can help. In Delhi, Khan says, the Pakistani High Commission refused to entertain him, so he approached the local police, but in vain.
“I took a train to Mumbai and arrived at Dadar on November 1, 2023. I proceeded to Goa, returned to Mumbai took a taxi to the police commissioner’s office near Crawford Market, and turned myself in,” he recalls.
On November 1, 2023, Khan was handed over to the MRA Marg police, who detained him while he was questioned over the next few months by various agencies, including the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and intelligence authorities.
“Initially, we decided that Khan should be deported but, after seeking legal counsel, we formally arrested him on April 11, 2024, and charged him under the Foreigners Act and the Passport Act, for illegal entry into the country. A metropolitan magistrate court convicted and sentenced him to six months’ imprisonment,” said an officer with the MRA Marg police.
On serving his sentence, Khan walked out of Arthur Road Jail on October 11, 2024, but since he was still an illegal alien, he was detained at the MRA Marg police station, once again, and has been living there, awaiting deportation, ever since.
Since his release from jail, the Special Branch of the Mumbai Police has been writing to the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi, seeking Khan’s early deportation. “We have been instructed to take care of him till he is sent back and he’s been staying in the police station since,” said the police officer.
“They (the police) provide me breakfast, lunch and dinner and have looked after me very well. I miss my family. I have two wives and two sons – Sufian (27) and Ayan (17),” says Khan. “I usually spend the day helping them (the police) with little things to keep busy. But the nights are difficult as I keep thinking about my family and cannot sleep,” he adds.
Last week, Pravin Kumar Munde, deputy commissioner of police, Zone 1, instructed Santosh Dhanawade, senior police inspector at the MRA Marg police station, and Anil Rathod, an officer with the Anti-Terrorist Cell, to escort Khan to the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi to expedite his deportation.
“We would like to deport him at the earliest, to help him unite with his family in Karachi,” said the police officer. “But we have to go through the official channels to get him a hearing at the Pakistani High Commission.”
