“Main Pakistani hoon, mujhe pakdo (I am a Pakistani, arrest me).” When an intoxicated Shafat Ahmed Siddique shouted these words in front of the Bajiria Police Station in May 2005, he was blind with rage at his brothers-in-law. But a year in jail and another in police detention have sobered him up. “I had a fight with my two brothers-in-law and wanted to fix them on charges of sheltering a foreign national,” the 65-year-old told The Indian Express at the police station, his home since being released from jail last May. But Siddique got more than what he had bargained for. The “master tailor”—as he likes to call himself— has served out a one-year jail term for procuring a forged Indian passport, but can’t leave the police station until he is deported to Pakistan. His Indian wife, Indore-based teacher Jameela Parveen, even approached the Madhya Pradesh Human Rights Commission accusing the police of keeping him in illegal detention. She wanted to know why her husband was being detained even after his jail term. “If there is a case against him produce him before a court or let him come home,” she prayed before the Commission. The police have their reasons. “We can’t let him go because the process to deport him is on. What if he goes missing?” asks Bhopal SP A K Singh. Siddique claims he was born in Badaut in Meerut in 1942. His parents took him to Pakistan immediately after Partition. Later, he slipped back into India through Nepal and started living without valid documents, working in Delhi, Agra, Mumbai and Indore as a tailor. He married Jameela in Indore in 1988. They have two sons. Siddique has a ration card and an election card. But both could not bail him out when the Bhopal police presented him in court accusing him of violating the Foreigners Act. Siddique confessed that he had a Pakistani passport, but had also managed an Indian passport from Bhopal. He claimed to have travelled to Pakistan in 1992 as Mansur Khan, though he could not submit either of his passports to the police. A passport officer confirmed to the court that a passport had been issued to one Mansur Khan, but the documents had since been destroyed.The court of Judicial Magistrate First Class Arvind Raghuvanshi sentenced him to one-year jail term each under Section 420 of the IPC (forged passport) and the Foreigners Act for traveling without valid documents. Though Siddique denied the charge in the court, he could not prove that he was an Indian national. Both his sentences ran concurrently. The chargesheet, however, said Siddique was caught from Muskan Theatre after the police were tipped off by an informer.Siddique confessed that he had lied about his nationality to live in India. He claimed that one Bilaluddin, with whom he worked for three years in Bhopal, destroyed his Pakistani passport fearing he might be jailed for sheltering a foreigner. “My mistakes have come back to haunt me. I am frustrated with living in the police station. I even attempted suicide once,” Siddique says. His only solace, a tailoring machine, has also been taken away from him now. “They thought I would use the clothes to kill myself.” He used to make some money stitching clothes in the police station, but is now dependent on the cops to treat him to even a cup of tea.“It may take 10 years.or even my lifetime for the papers to be processed,” he says, adding that even if deported he would like to come back and live the rest of his life in India.
