Tags:
Journalism of Courage
A woman from Mumbai who spent six years in a Pakistani jail for overstaying her visa left for India on Friday.
Fatimabi Ahmed Abdul Rahman Salem, who married a Pakistan citizen in Dubai and migrated to the country, was released after intervention by prominent Pakistani human rights activist Asma Jehangir, who fought her case.
Fatima lost her first husband during the 1993 Mumbai riots. Left with three daughters to look after, she went to Dubai. She met Ramzan, a Pakistani national, there and after some time decided to exchange marital vows.
However, a few months after the marriage, the couple went to Rawalpindi, a trip with which Fatima’s nightmare began.
She realised that Ramzan was already married. A few days later Ramzan left Pakistan, leaving behind Fatima. ‘‘Thereafter I used to be harassed and tortured by my in-laws. My mother-in law burnt my face. When I fled from the house, I was arrested as the tenure of my visa had lapsed,’’ she recalls.
Fatima was convicted in 2001. After the end of a one-year jail term, she was again put behind bars. She was lodged in various jails in Rawalpindi, Multan and Lahore. It was during her imprisonment in Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore that her case came to Asma Jehangir, who took up her cause.
‘‘It took a long time,’’ she says. Stating that there were three more such Indian women in Pakistani jails, Asma added, ‘‘It is very painful. They have no relations here, no association.’’
She said that two of these women had become insane but still were in prison.
