Had assumed he was dead: son of man released from Pakistan prison after 36 years

Clad in a Pakistani Salwar Kamiz, black chappals and holding his belongings in a white plastic bag, Sharma on Monday sat through the two-and-a-half hours clearance process at customs and immigration check points demurely.

Holding a banner to welcome Sharma, activists of Vipra Foundation from Jaipur were waiting at the border with flowers and sweets. “We have come to receive him with honour. It is our responsibility to take him to his house,” said Sahdev Sharma of Vipra foundation.

At his Jaipur home, his wife Makhni Devi’s long wait for her husband to return home is near its end. Devi says the hours have grown longer after she was told that he was being released. She says she still does not know when he will return — if it will take a couple of days, or more.

Family members have been exchanging sweets, while Devi has been mostly laughing, but has broken down several times.

“I am very very happy. I would like to thank everyone, all those who have been working hard to help bring Gajanand back. For 36 years, mere ghar ka maalik nahi tha (the owner of the house was not home). Mere ghar ki kadar nahi thi (My home wasn’t held in esteem). We lived without kadar (esteem) all these years,” she said on Monday. Sharma’s son Mukesh, who was 12 years old when his father went missing, now has three children and is 48.

“We had assumed he was dead. Then on May 7, we were told that he is lodged in a Pakistan jail. Then on May 9, we completed some formalities and it was officially confirmed (to the agencies) that he is an Indian citizen,” Mukesh said.

All these years, the family had clutched on to his memories and three photographs. “We don’t know anything about his arrival in Jaipur. We were told that he will be back after completing formalities, but it may take a day or two,” Mukesh said.

Earlier, Jaipur MP Bohra had said that Sharma had been sentenced to two months incarceration, but due to lack of consular access, he continued to remain in jail. It was only this May, following an inquiry via the External Affairs Ministry, that Jaipur police contacted his family and submitted documents attesting his identity that he was released.