The two Indian clerics who recently went missing from Pakistan have returned to Karachi and will come back to India on March 20, Pakistani channel Samaa TV reported on Saturday. The Pakistani government has told the Indian High Commission in Islamabad that the two had been “traced and have reached Karachi”, The Indian Express reported.
Syed Asif Ali Nizami, the head priest of Delhi’s Hazrat Nizammuddin Aulia Dargah, and his nephew Syed Nazim Ali Nizami were reportedly offloaded from a Karachi-bound flight at Lahore airport on March 14.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Sunday said she had spoken with Syed Nazim Ali Nizami in Karachi. “He told me that they are safe and will be back in Delhi tomorrow,” she said on Twitter.
Syed Wazir Nizami, the head priest’s nephew who had hosted the two in Karachi, told The Indian Express: “Authorities...[said] they had gone to visit their followers in interior Sindh, but due to no cellular service, they were unable to get in touch with us. They have yet to reach home.”
Syed Asif Nizami’s son Amir said in Delhi that the Home Ministry had informed them that the two had been found and released. “They are supposed to return to India on Monday. As of now, we haven’t been informed where they were kept and why,” he told The Indian Express.
The development came within hours of Swaraj’s interaction with Sartaj Aziz, foreign affairs adviser to Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. It was earlier reported that the two were in custody of the country’s intelligence agency. Pakistan’s intelligence agency had said they were detained for their alleged links with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, whose members are being hounded by the government for the anti-national statements made by its chief, Altaf Hussain, in 2016.
According to reports, the 80-year-old and his nephew had visited Lahore’s Daata Darbar shrine and were supposed to fly back to India from Karachi on Wednesday. They had visited their relatives in Karachi before heading to Lahore, from where they went missing. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and taken up the issue with Islamabad.
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