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" Dead Bangladeshi returns after 23 years !

third eye

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The bold part below needs attention by those who feel no ppl from BD cross over..

Any way a happy ending is always nice.


UNBconnect... - 'Dead man' returns after 23 years!

Dhaka, Aug 1 (AP/UNB) - For 23 years, his family in Bangladesh thought he was dead. But then an anonymous caller informed a local official in May that he was alive and in jail in Pakistan.

On Tuesday, 52-year-old Moslemuddin Sarkar, who had been missing since 1989, returned home.

Pakistani officials freed him from the jail in Karachi on Monday night and immediately deported him.

Sarkar, bearded and sharp-eyed but ravaged by fatigue, walked out of the concourse in Dhaka's airport and was hugged tightly by his brother, Sekandar Ali.

"I can't believe you are alive; you are back!" Ali said. Sarkar remained silent, tears rolling down his cheeks."Brother, let's go home," Ali said. "Mother is waiting for you."

Sarkar had left home one morning in 1989 after a brief visit, telling his family he was returning to his job as a dock worker at Bangladesh's main Chittagong Seaport. His family didn't hear from him again until the International Committee of the Red Cross found him in the Karachi jail after the anonymous call.

After Sarkar's disappearance, Ali visited the shipyard to search for him, but was told he hadn't returned to work.

"We waited for months, years, and finally thought he was no more," Ali said. "Otherwise, why wouldn't he inform us where he was?"

Even after his return Tuesday, Sarkar was reluctant to explain what had happened to him and why he ended up in a jail in Pakistan.

"I crossed the border to India in 1989 and went to Delhi after staying a few months in the Indian states of Assam and Meghalaya. Later, I got married in Delhi," he said. "But I got caught along the India-Pakistan border when I tried to enter Pakistan in 1997," he said. "I had no travel documents."

"I served 15 years in jail," he said, without giving any further explanation. "Let me meet my mother first," he said. "I will tell you everything later."

Pakistan and India have a history of bitter relations and often arrest and imprison each other's citizens for lengthy periods for entering their territories. Both sides have freed scores of such prisoners, but hundreds are still believed held in jails.

After Sarkar's family learned from the anonymous caller that he was alive and in Pakistan, they were at a loss what to do.

They repeatedly called the phone number from which the anonymous call had come, but were told that it was not in use. Then they learned that the Red Cross helps trace missing people and seek their repatriation.

They contacted the ICRC's Dhaka office, which informed its delegation in Pakistan. Within days it found that Sarkar was languishing in the Karachi jail.

Meanwhile, in Sarkar's home village of Bishnurampur in northern Bangladesh, everyone was ready to welcome him home.

"The whole village is waiting for him. Everybody is concerned to know when he is coming, how it happened," Habibur Rahman, a resident of the village, said by phone. "This is going to be a great reunion," he said.
 
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A Bangladeshi man who went missing for 23 years has been reunited with his family, who had given him up for dead.

Moslemuddin Sarkar, 52, arrived back in Dhaka on Tuesday, a day after being freed from a Pakistani jail with the help of the Red Cross.

His family lost contact after Mr Sarkar left for India in search of work in 1989. Years later, he ended up in Pakistan, where he was arrested.

He says he was beaten and tortured in his subsequent 15 years in prison.

"I requested that embassy officials send me back to Bangladesh but no one listened to me," he told the BBC.

"I suffered a lot in the prison and was crying for help. But no-one came to my rescue. Still I don't understand why I was kept in jail for such a long time. At last, I am back with my family and I feel great."
'Heartbreaking'

There were emotional scenes when Mr Sarkar was welcomed by relatives at Dhaka airport, the BBC's Anbarasan Ethirajan reports from Bangladesh.

A younger brother, Julhas Uddin, told the AFP news agency that Mr Sarkar's mother "passed out as he hugged her" after returning to his home village.

"It was a heartbreaking scene. He could not control his tears for hours," Julhas Uddin said.

A dockworker at the port of Chittagong, Mr Sarkar says he illegally crossed the border to India in 1989 in search of better opportunities, without telling his family.

"We searched for him for years and finally gave up hope believing he might have drowned in the sea. But our mother always believed that her son would return home one day," Julhas Uddin said.

In 1997, he was caught trying to enter Pakistan without valid travel documents, spending the next 15 years in prisons in Lahore and Karachi. He told the BBC he was completely cut off from the world during that time.

"I went to Pakistan believing that I would get a better job there. But they caught me at the border," he told AFP. "I wrote dozens of letters to my village address, but did not have any clue that they were never posted. At one stage I lost all hope of returning home."

His fate reportedly came to light when Pakistan sent a list of long-serving Bangladeshi prisoners to consular officials, who informed Mr Sarkar's family. They in turn appealed to the International Committee of the Red Cross, who facilitated his release.

Should have been deported instead of being detained for more then 15 years but he sneaked through India so that may have been the reason for his indefinite detention.

BBC News - Bangladeshi man missing for 23 years returns home
 
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