THE UNKNOWN MEN WHO BECAME UNFORGETTABLE

When illegal immigration began dominating the headlines recently, I remembered two people from my earlier reporting assignments — C. Ibrahim and Moidu Kizhisseri.

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When he was 22 years old, Ibrahim, who hailed from Vadakara in Kerala’s Kozhikode district, boarded a ship to the Gulf, which landed up in Pakistan. He lived there for nine years and managed to secure a Pakistani passport. He returned to India in 1998 and married a woman called Nabeesu. By the time the police found out that he was not a valid resident, the couple had had two daughters.

In 2003, Ibrahim was to be deported to Pakistan following a judicial ruling that he was not an Indian citizen. But he was turned back from the Attari-Wagah Border as he did not have the documents to prove that he was a Pakistani national.

I met Ibrahim when he arrived at the Kozhikode railway station from the border. He told me that his family was in Kozhikode and his roots were in Malabar. He pleaded that he was not a Pakistani spy.