Iqbal was arrested by Aligarh police in 2001 and 2007 under NDPS Act. (File Photo)
The Pakistani Embassy in New Delhi has been allowed counsellor access to a native of Karachi, who had been convicted in two cases of drug peddling and is at present facing trial in a similar case in Aligarh. The Aligarh District Jail, where Iqbal has been lodged since 2012, had only last year found out that the 64-year-old was a Pakistani citizen. Till then, whenever Iqbal had been arrested or lodged in jail, he had pretended to be an Indian citizen by providing the police and the jail authorities his Indian addresses.
After the Aligarh jail came to know about his nationality, the state prison department intimated the Union Ministry of Home Affairs last year, which further informed the Pakistani Embassy. “We came to know about Iqbal being a Pakistani national after receiving a letter from the Aligarh police. We informed the MHA through the prisons headquarters in Lucknow,” said Agra DIG (Prisons) Sharad Kulshestra.
“Recently, we received a letter from the MHA, forwarded by the prisons headquarters, asking us to send Iqbal to Tihar Jail in Delhi on August 28 for a counsellor access with Pakistani Embassy officials. A letter has now been sent to officials to provide police security to send Iqbal to Delhi,” he added. Aligarh’s Local Intelligence Unit (LIU) Inspector Anil Kumar said Iqbal had been staying in India on “long term visa” since his childhood. “He used to visit the LIU office every year for extension of the visa. After he was booked and arrested, Iqbal stopped visiting the LIU office and we started a hunt for him. Last year, we found him lodged in Aligarh District Jail. A report was later sent to the jail administration, informing that Iqbal is a native of Karachi,” he added.
Kumar said Iqbal’s father Abdul Sattar alias Raffaq was an Indian citizen. “According to our records, Iqbal came to India in 1955 along with his mother Bundo Begum and elder brother Anwaar. Iqbal was then two years old and came to India on his mother’s passport,” he added. “Bundo Begum received Indian citizenship in 1968 and two years later, she died in India. We do not have any record of Abdul Sattar,” said Kumar. He added that both Iqbal and Anwaar had been staying in Aligarh on a “long term visa”, which has to be renewed
every year.
“After 1990, Anwaar went missing and is yet to be traced. But Iqbal used to get his visa extended from Aligarh’s LIU office every year. However, he stopped coming for visa extension a few years ago and was found in Aligarh jail,” said Kumar.
According to records, Iqbal was arrested by Aligarh police in 2001 and 2007 under NDPS Act. After being released on bail, he was arrested again in January, 2010 by the Nainital police in Uttarakhand on charges of drug peddling.
In 2010, Iqbal was sentenced to five-years imprisonment in the 2001 case. In 2011, a local court in Nainital handed him 10-years imprisonment in the 2010 case. After his conviction in Nainital, Iqbal was sent back to Aligarh jail to face trial in another pending case. “Iqbal is facing trial in another case under NDPS Act lodged at City Kotwali police station in Aligarh in 2007. We have letter to the Nainital jail authorities asking for details about Iqbal,” said an official in Aligarh jail.
