By Shumaila Jaffery in Islamabad & Amruta Durve in Mumbai
BBC Data
Advise source, Waliullah Maroof
Advise caption, Waliullah Maroof (real) helped reunite Hamida Banu alongside with her household
An Indian lady who was missing for 20 years has been chanced on in Pakistan with the support of a video on social media.
Hamida Banu left India in 2002 after a recruitment agent promised to gain her the job of a cook in Dubai. As an alternative, she says, she was tricked and trafficked to Pakistan.
Ms Banu’s household in India’s Mumbai told BBC Marathi that they spent twenty years searching for out her – and they finally managed to realize so resulting from two men, one in India and the diversified in Pakistan.
The neighbouring international locations portion a tense relationship, which in most cases makes it advanced for Indians and Pakistanis to slump for the duration of the border. In Ms Banu’s case, she was also hobbled by an absence of monetary resources and abilities.
But thru the years, she never stopped craving to meet her childhood. In a roundabout diagram, in July this year, Waliullah Maroof, a social media activist, interviewed Ms Banu and uploaded the video online.
Advise source, Waliullah Maroof
Advise caption, Ms Banu lives alongside with her stepson in Karachi
An Indian journalist named Khalfan Shaikh – who lives in Mumbai – shared the video with his followers, which led to Ms Banu’s household discovering her.
The two men then helped situation up a video call between Ms Banu and her daughter Yasmin Shaikh.
“How are you? Did you recognise me? The place were you all these years?” Yasmin is viewed asking in the emotional video.
“Don’t query me where I used to be, and how I were. I overlooked you all so great. I didn’t conclude here willingly, I had no diversified replacement,” Ms Banu replies.
Ms Banu’s run
Within the interview with Mr Maroof, Ms Banu says that she had been financially supporting her four childhood in India after her husband’s death. She had worked as a cook in Doha, Qatar, Dubai and Saudi Arabia in the past without any issues.
In 2002, she approached a recruitment agent to support put together a job in Dubai. The woman asked her to pay 20,000 rupees ($250; £200).
Ms Banu says in the video that as a change of Dubai, she was brought to Hyderabad city in Pakistan – there, she says she was detained in a dwelling for 3 months.
Advise source, Aman Shaikh
Advise caption, A describe of Ms Banu from outdated to her disappearance
Sometime over time, she married a one who lived in Karachi city – nonetheless he died for the duration of the Covid-19 pandemic. Ms Banu now lives alongside with her stepson.
Yasmin says that in her mother’s outdated stints in a international nation, she would call them on a conventional basis. But after she left in 2002, they waited months for a phone call. In a roundabout diagram, they approached the agent who had organised the time out.
“She told us that our mother was properly and didn’t desire to tell with us. We stored returning to query questions about our mother, and then she [the agent] all at the moment vanished,” Yasmin adds.
Finding Ms Banu
Mr Maroof, an imam at a neighborhood mosque in Karachi, says he first met her round 15 years in the past when she moved to his neighbourhood and opened a little shop.
“I were seeing her since my childhood. She continuously regarded distressed,” he says.
For years, Mr Maroof had aged his social media accounts to support girls folks from Bangladesh – who had been trafficked to Pakistan – gain their families.
After Ms Banu’s second husband died, she in most cases asked Mr Marroof’s mother to persuade him to support her as properly.
Mr Maroof says he sympathised alongside with her, nonetheless was hesitant resulting from the frigid relatives between the international locations.
“My company told me to conclude some distance from India, suggesting that it would possibly possibly possibly land me in effort. On the other hand, I felt so execrable for her that I couldn’t face up to it anymore,” he mentioned, asserting that he doesn’t take any money for his efforts.
Within the interview, Ms Banu had mentioned her Mumbai address and the names of her childhood.
Advise source, Aman Shaikh
Advise caption, Yasmin (conserving the newborn) was 27 years feeble when her mother left
When Mr Shaikh shared the video, it was spotted by Yasmin’s son, Aman.
The 18-year-feeble had never met his grandmother, as he was born after she left, nonetheless Yasmin recognised her at as soon as.
Mr Maroof says that officials on the Indian High Commission in Pakistan comprise contacted him and asked Ms Banu to publish an utility with facts of the case so that they would possibly be able to originate the process of repatriation. But he will not be truly particular how great time this would possibly take.
Within the intervening time, Ms Banu is counting the days until she will be able to return dwelling. She says she had nearly lost hope of ever assembly her childhood all every other time.
All over the border, the feelings are similar, Yasmin says.
“We waited for her for 20 years. I’m so ecstatic now. I can’t stop smiling ever since I seen that video. Or no longer it is a unprecedented feeling.”