I used to turn out to be very offended each time somebody talked towards India, however now I’m not feeling nicely and affected by blood stress.”
Mumbai, Ensconced in her one-room dwelling and surrounded by kids and grandkids, Hamida Bano had a bit of recommendation for these in search of jobs overseas: “All the time use the right channel if you wish to keep away from what I went by means of.”
Hamida was chatting with PTI at her place in Kurla in central Mumbai hours after she reached town on Wednesday. The 73-year-old lady spent about 22 years in Pakistan after an agent lured her with a “good” job within the Gulf and as a substitute dumped her within the neighbouring nation.
“Mumbai seems so completely different now,” exclaimed a beaming Hamida.
A little bit of luck and plenty of exhausting work on the a part of two activists, one in Pakistan and one other in Mumbai, helped Hamida reunite along with her household.
“I used to be overjoyed to see the Indian tricolour after I reached the Wagah border in Punjab from Lahore. After over twenty years, I used to be ecstatic that I’d lastly enter my nation and head to my metropolis Mumbai,” mentioned Hamida.
A resident of Kasaiwada in Kurla , Hamida got here in contact with a Vikhroli-based agent in 2002 who supplied her the job of a home assist in Dubai. The agent took Hamida and 4 different ladies to Pakistan and handed them over to 2 males.
After being saved at an undisclosed location for a while, Hamida was left to fend for herself in Hyderabad, a significant metropolis within the Sindh province. However she had no paperwork to show her Indian id because the Pakistani brokers took away all her paperwork, recalled Hamida.
Talking to PTI at her 10ft X 10ft dwelling, Hamida mentioned, “I want to warning individuals searching for jobs overseas and earn cash that they need to permit use the right channel. Many ladies like me from India and Bangladesh who have been deceived by brokers are caught in Pakistan.”
Hamida, who has two sons, two daughters and plenty of grandchildren, mentioned a fruit vendor took care of her all these years. “He was very good. I’d get offended when somebody spoke towards India,” she mentioned.
An opportunity encounter with an activist, Waliullah Maroof, in 2022 raised her hopes. After studying that she was from India, Maroof looked for activists in Mumbai and acquired in contact with Khaflan Shaikh by means of social media in 2020.
Shaikh then shared a video of Hamida amongst his acquaintances and one among them advised him that her daughter Yaseem lives in Kurla’a Kasaiwada. He acquired in contact with Yaseem and related her with Hamida by means of a video name. PTI had reported Hamida’s discovery then.
Yaseem mentioned the PTI report brightened the prospects of her mom’s return as her story reached a a lot wider viewers and facilitated her documentation by means of official channels.
“We’re grateful to PTI. We have been knowledgeable by somebody from Pakistan that my mom would attain the Wagah border on December 16 and have been requested to succeed in there,” she mentioned.
Yaseem mentioned the Indian embassy in Pakistan made her mom’s passport, and thanked the Pakistani authorities for extending cooperation at each stage.
“My father Haneef died in 2002. We’re blissful that our mom is alive and again dwelling. Earlier, she had visited international locations like Qatar to work as a home assist,” mentioned Yaseem.
Shaikh, who’s instrumental in Hamida’s return, mentioned, “Although she was traced in 2022, it took efforts over the following two years to make sure that she was again in Kurla.”
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