Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has directed the Indian high commissioner in Pakistan to seek consular access to an Indian prisoner who was reportedly attacked at least thrice by inmates in a Peshawar jail.
Hamid Nehal Ansari, a Mumbai resident, arrested in 2012 for illegally entering Pakistan from Afghanistan reportedly to meet a girl he had befriended online, suffered injuries after he was attacked by inmates in the Peshawar Central Prison.
“I am very much disturbed to read about repeated attacks on Hamid Ansari who is detained in Peshawar jail since 2012. It is inhuman,” Swaraj tweeted, “I have asked our High Commissioner in Pakistan to seek Consular access to Hamid Ansari in hospital/Jail and report.”
The 31-year-old was sentenced to three years imprisonment for possessing a fake Pakistani identity card.
Ansari’s lawyer Qazi Mohammad Anwar told a Peshawar High Court bench on Thursday that his client was attacked at least thrice by jail inmates in recent months. Anwar also told the court that Ansari had been kept in a death cell with a hardened criminal awaiting execution for a murder.