A thirteen-year-old Pakistani boy who accidentally but illegally crossed the border into India while running an errand two months ago finally returned home today, and swore he would never go near the border again. Munir Ahmed disappeared on June 24 after his father asked him to collect money from a friend who lived in a nearby border village. The boy got lost and unintentionally wandered across the border. Indian border security guards arrested him and sent him to a juvenile prison. But in the latest sign of thawing relations between the nuclear-armed rivals, PM A.B. Vajpayee ordered Munir’s release. He burst into tears when he was reunited with his father Mohammed Bilal at a a government office in eastern Pakistan on Monday. ‘‘I swear, next time I will not even go close to the Indian border,’’ he said. His 46-year-old father, a shepherd, said, ‘‘I am thankful to everybody in India for sending my son back.’’ Munir was returned to Pakistan on August 13, but because he was uneducated and illiterate, the boy couldn’t explain to officials how to get him to his home in the village of Wattoowalas in Bahawalpur district, 500 km south of Lahore. But authorities finally tracked down his father and the family was reunited. Meanwhile, President Pervez Musharraf today said Muslim extremists were undermining Islamic Pakistan’s efforts to build a reputation for religious moderation, state radio reported. Musharraf’s comments, reportedly made in a meeting with ruling coalition lawmakers, followed a weekend of sectarian unrest in Karachi that damaged some US business properties. ‘‘A small minority of extremists through their acts were damaging our image, while the vast majority of Pakistanis are moderate,’’ Musharraf was quoted as saying by Radio Pakistan. Musharraf urged Islamic clerics to avoid confrontation with the West and to demonstrate ‘‘enlightened moderation’’. He also said the West should help Muslim countries in their fight against poverty. State media also reported that General Richard Myers, chairman of the US armed forces’ joint chiefs of staff, telephoned Pakistan to express regret for the accidental killing of two Pakistani troops by US soldiers on its volatile border with Afghanistan. US troops in patrolling the Afghan side in Paktika Province had called in air support to pursue gunmen who had fired on them and were escaping towards Pakistan
