After six years in jail, Pakistan to release Indian national Hamid Ansari today

New Delhi, Dec 17: After six years in jail, Pakistan to release Indian national Hamid Ansari who crossed border for love tomorrow. Earlier, a Pakistani court had asked the government to complete formalities for Ansari's deportation within a month as his three-year jail term ended on December 15.

Ansari, a 33-year-old Mumbai resident, is currently lodged in the Peshawar Central Jail after being sentenced by a military court to three years' imprisonment for possessing a fake Pakistani identity card on December 15, 2015.

He was arrested in Pakistan in 2012 for illegally entering the country from Afghanistan, reportedly to meet a girl he had befriended online.

Ansari's lawyer, Qazi Muhammad Anwar, said that his client's prison term will end on December 15 and he should be released on the morning of December 16.

Anwar informed the bench that the sentence of Indian national would complete after two days and both the Ministry of Interior and authorities of prison, where he was lodged, were completely silent about his release and deportation to India.

Ansari had gone missing after he was taken into custody by Pakistani intelligence agencies and local police in Kohat in 2012 and finally in reply to a habeas corpus petition filed by his mother, Fauzia Ansari, the high court was informed that he was in custody of the Pakistan Army and was being tried by a military court.

The decision comes days after Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) issued a note verbale to the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi, asking them to make necessary arrangements for the "earliest" release of Indian prisoners who have either completed their sentence or have been identified as Indian nationals lodged in Pakistani prisons.

(with PTI inputs)