Pak hands over `missing’ Indian pilgrim

ATTARI (AMRITSAR): Pakistan authorities today handed over an Indian national who had gone to Pakistan on pilgrimage but was missing from his group when it returned on Saturday, officials said.

The Sikh `jatha’ had come home on April 21 after a 10-day pilgrimage but 24-year-old Amarjit Singh, a resident of village Niranjanpura in Amrtisar district, was not part of it.

Pakistan authorities later found him at the home of his “Facebook friend” Amir Razak in Sheikhupura, 50 km from Lahore, and handed him over to their Indian counterparts.

He told officials that he had gone to stay with Razak on April 16, telling his hosts that he held a visa for over a month’s stay in Pakistan.

When his friend asked him to show his passport, Amarjit Singh told him that it was deposited with the Pakistani authorities, according to the pilgrim’s account to Indian officials on his return.

Singh recalled that his host’s family got jittery when Pakistani and Indian television channels reported on April 21 about his sudden disappearance from a gurdwara.

Indian authorities had also reported him missing after they came to know that he was not among the pilgrims who had returned. (AGENCIES)

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