Pakistani woman, a Nepali jail escapee, arrested in Tripura; probe on

Agartala, Oct 12 A suspected Pakistani woman exhibiting suspicious movements was arrested in Tripura, and senior officials are interrogating her to gather more details, officials said on Sunday.

The arrested woman told police interrogators that she is an inhabitant of Pakistan’s Sheikhupura district. A senior police official said that the 50-year-old woman was arrested by the Government Railway Police (GRP) from southern Tripura’s Sabroom Railway Station on Saturday night after she arrived there by the Kanchanjunga Express.

The Kanchanjunga Express runs from Sealdah (Kolkata) to Sabroom, along the Bangladesh border, via Malda Town, New Jalpaiguri, Guwahati, Badarpur (southern Assam) and Agartala. “The arrested woman speaks in Hindi and initially claimed that she stays in Purani Basti in Delhi. On being asked, she said that her name is Saheena Parveen. However, she could not produce any valid identity document. Several Pakistani contact numbers were found with her, concealed in sheets of paper tied around her waist,” the police official told IANS, refusing to disclose his identity.

The official said that during interrogation, the woman initially claimed that she was a Pakistani national from the Punjab province, and stated that three years ago she entered Bangladesh and subsequently crossed into India through West Bengal with the help of an agent.

She told interrogators that from West Bengal she moved to Delhi, where she worked as a maidservant. The woman further claimed that she was attempting to return to Pakistan via Bangladesh and, following the instructions of an agent, arrived in Sabroom via the Kanchanjunga Express from Siliguri (West Bengal).

“After prolonged interrogation, the woman admitted that her initial statements were false. She revealed her true identity as Louis Nighat Akhtar Bhano, wife of Mohammad Golaf Faraj, from Village Younganabad, Chak No. 371, District Sheikhupura, Pakistan,” the police official said, quoting the interrogation report.

The official said that the woman revealed she had travelled to Nepal 12 years ago with a passport for drug trafficking purposes, and in 2014, she was arrested by Nepal Police with one kg of brown sugar and sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment.

She was kept in Kathmandu Jail, and last month, during unrest in Nepal, she escaped from custody.

Approximately 15 to 16 days ago, she entered India and learnt from her associates and agent that she could return to Pakistan through Bangladesh by crossing the India-Bangladesh border via West Bengal or Tripura, the police official said, quoting the woman.

“She first went to West Bengal but found no opportunity to cross the border. Following the directions of the agent, she travelled to Tripura and arrived in Sabroom on the Kanchanjunga Express,” the official said.

Police and intelligence officials are now continuing their interrogation of the woman to gather further details.

Tripura, which shares an 856 km border with Bangladesh, is surrounded on three sides by the neighbouring country, making the northeastern state highly vulnerable and sensitive to cross-border illegal movements, migration, smuggling, human trafficking and other border-related crimes.

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