Maha readies list of Pak nationals for deportation

Nadir Karim Khan, a leather trader, arrived in India without any documents after being duped in Nepal

- Vinay Dalvi

MUMBAI: The Indian government's diktat on the deportation of Pakistani nationals from India following the Pahalgam terror attack has rekindled hope for Nadir Karim Khan. The 65-year-old Pakistani leather merchant has been trying to return to his family in Karachi for 18 months; instead, he's been held hostage by a ton of bad luck, a bunch of red tape, and a prison sentence for staying illegally in India.

For more than six months, Khan's home has been the MRA police station near Crawford Market, where he whiles away his time serving tea to the officers, and staring blankly into space when he's not looking at pictures of his family on his cell phone. If the Indian government's determination to deport Pakistani nationals helps cut through the red tape, Khan could be on his way back to his wives and children.

Passage to India Khan's incredible story starts in November 2021, when he travelled to Kathmandu in Nepal, to deliver a large consignment of leather jackets. "I delivered the consignment to an importer there but the cheques they gave me bounced. So I approached the Kathmandu police to report the matter. Instead, I was assaulted and robbed of whatever I had left with me, including my passport," says Khan, quietly, seated in a small room in the compound of the MRA Marg police station.

The government of Nepal also fined Khan for overstaying in the Himalayan country. With no way to raise the money, he approached the Pakistani embassy in Kathmandu but they did not help either, he says.