Hamid Ansari had entered Pakistan on November 12, 2012, to meet a woman whom he had befriended on social media. The 33-year-old was arrested in November 2012 and handed a three-year sentence in 2015 for possessing a fake Pakistani identity card.
Hamid Ansari wiped a tear from each eye as the two women spoke. Barely a day had passed since his six-year-long ordeal in Pakistan, where he'd been imprisoned, ended with an extraordinary homecoming moment at the Wagah Border in Punjab on December 18.
Now, Ansari stood before Sushma Swaraj, India's external affairs minister, and his mother Fauzia was overwhelmed.
"Mera Bharat mahaan," Fauzia told Sushma Swaraj as they embraced, her voice clear despite the strain of emotion. (My India is great).
"Meri madam mahaan. Meri madam ne hi sab kiya hai," she said. (My madam did everything).
#WATCH Indian National Hamid Ansari who came to India after being released from a Pakistan jail yesterday, meets External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in Delhi. His mother tells EAM "Mera Bharat mahaan, meri madam mahaan, sab madam ne hi kiya hai." pic.twitter.com/FQEzz99Ohm
— ANI (@ANI) December 19, 2018
Hamid Nihal Ansari, 33, is a software engineer from Mumbai. He was arrested in 2012 for illegally entering Pakistan from Afghanistan, reportedly to meet a girl he befriended online. After Fauzia filed a habeas corpus petition, a court was informed that the Pakistan Army had custody of her son, and that he was being tried by a military court.
He was sentenced on December 15, 2015, and imprisoned in the Peshawar Central Jail.
Today, Ansari narrated his ordeal to Sushma Swaraj. He thanked her and her ministry for persisting with the case and taking it up with the Pakistan government.
"I know that my efforts were less and God's grace was more. It was because of God's grace that I got very good people who helped me through these years," Fauzia Ansari has said.
"The government of India was very supportive, so was the media on both sides of the border. This couldn't have been possible were it not for the lawyers and activists in Pakistan who worked on the case."
Ansari's father Nihal, perhaps, summed up the family's mood best.
"It is a new dawn for us," he said.