Humiliated and abandoned citizens of Pakistan and or India. A mother who gave birth in a prison in Bengaluru and a daughter with no place left to go in Lahore, and with no identity.
JusticeNewsUrdu.com | https://www.lfxtv.com/lfxblog | June 18 2022
Imagine ending up in prison in a foreign land where you don't know anyone except the man who promised to take care of you only if you give it all up, run away and marry him.
A big price to pay, for love and trust, the state of which is in total decimation today.
What if while you are in prison, because your husband coerced you to cross the Indian border from Nepal, illegally, you also have to deliver a baby, alone, both mother and child, in torturous conditions, extremely malnourished and the baby is preterm, with a hole in her heart. Would all this make it more difficult?
This is the story of Sameera Rehman. She got released from prison in March of 22, after almost 5 years of imprisonment in Bangalore India, where Sameera pleaded guilty in the trials and was convicted based on her plea, while her husband who promised her everything, disappeared. Not just because, according to Sameera, the officers at the IB the Indian Bureau of Intelligence harassed, beat up and assaulted Shihab but because he just didn't want to be with her anymore.
Listening to Sameera, it is also clear how her own country's ISI officers, the Inter Services Intelligence agency of Pakistan, greeted her and her 5 year old unwell child.
This is an ordeal of a woman and her little girl, stuck in between the decades of useless animosity between two neighbors, hating each other, so much so that a person's life doesn't even matter anymore.
But thank God for people like Sahana Basavapatna, she's not just a good attorney who took this case pro bono but also has an extremely kind heart. She fought Sameera's case and teamed up with the staff at Dastak Foundation, a non profit in Pakistan that advocates to get justice for women. She also took Sameera's case to the media by contacting a reporter from BBC. Sahana also worked with a Pakistani Senator Irfan Siddiqui to help Sameera be recognised as a Pakistani citizen and get her nationality.
Do you think all this could have been avoided? What can be the lessons learned here?
Lesson #1 - Do not start trusting people right away
You have to give it time, patience and attention to details of the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, and understand each other before you completely throw yourself away. Stop and think about it thrice.
Lesson #2 - Let them Explain themselves to you more
So you don't get caught up on the blind side when things go from bad to worse.
"The only way to trust a man, or a woman, to know that they won't betray you, is to test their sincerity to God" –
Lesson #3 - Do Not Forget Lesson 1 and 2
If love is blind and so are your nation's laws, then avoid getting caught up in them both, because I can almost guarantee you, you might regret it if you don't.
| Imran Siddiqui is the managing editor at Justice News and the author of The JBlog.
Listen to Imran's podcast FairPlay Challenging Wrongful Convictions on J107 Justice Radio
Watch the show here on D.C. Live