After 17 years in Pak jail, Bihar man reunites with family on Diwali

According to police, Shyam Sundar Das had gone to Punjab along with his five other migrant workers in 2005. All of them accidentally crossed the border near Amritsar and reached Pakistan where border guards caught all of them.

It was a special Diwali for the family of a migrant labourer from Bihar’s Supaul district, who reunited with his loved ones after spending 17 years in a Pakistan jail.

Shyam Sundar Das (2nd from left) returned home and reunited with his parents at Bhawanipur on the day of Diwali on Monday, police said. (HT Photo)

Shyam Sundar Das, now 40, returned home and reunited with his parents at Bhawanipur on the day of Diwali on Monday, police said.

According to police, Das had gone to Punjab along with his five other migrant workers in 2005. All of them accidentally crossed the border near Amritsar and reached Pakistan where border guards caught all of them.

“His other friends succeeded in showing their papers and were released from detention centres after six months. Shyam Sunder, however, could not show any document and hence he was put in a jail in Lahore. He was released on September 29 this year after the papers were made available to Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi,” police said.

“I came to know in 2021 that my son was in Pakistan jail. I immediately approached the local police, who asked me to submit papers establishing his identity, which I promptly did,” Shyam Sundar’s father Bhagwan Das, a marginal farmer, said.

Soon, Supaul district magistrate (DM) Kaushal Kumar sent the papers to the authorities concerned and he was released.

After his release on September 29, he was handed over to Red Cross society and later he entered India through Wagah border and was admitted to Guru Gobind Singh Hospital in Amritsar.

“The hospital sent a message to Supaul DM and soon a team of police was sent to Punjab to bring him back,” station house officer (SHO) of Pratapganj police station, Prabhakar Bharti, said. “On Diwali day, he was handed over to his family in presence of people’s representatives.”

Shyam Sundar said, “I lost my mental balance and could not remember anything because of intense torture at the hands of Pakistani authorities. There are many other Indians at Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore who are languishing there in pitiable conditions.”