Hamida Bano expressed her joy to reunite with her family. She said she had lost hope of ever returning to India but was lucky to see this day.
Clarion India
NEW DELHI — Hamida Bano heaved a sigh of relief as she came back to India after 22 years of despair and hopelessness from Pakistan after she was fraudulently sent to Pakistan by a travel agent..
On Monday, December 17, she arrived india via the Wagah Border in Lahore after travelling by plane from Karachi. Pakistan foreign affairs ministry officials saw her off at the border, reports PTI.
The incident dates back to the year 2002, when Hamida Bano, who hails from Mumbai, was deceived by an agent with the promise of a job in Dubai but was taken to the Hyderabad district of Pakistan’s Sindh province.
Bano expressed her joy to reunite with her family. She said she had lost hope of ever returning to India but was lucky to see this day.
In 2022, Waliullah Maroof, a Pakistani YouTuber, shared her ordeal that Hamida Bano left India in 2002 after a recruitment agent promised to get her a job as a cook in Dubai. Instead, she was tricked and trafficked to Pakistan. Maroof’s vlog helped her connect with her family in India. Her daughter Yasmeen spoke to her by phone as well.
In a talk with Maroof, Hamida Bano said before coming to Pakistan she had been financially supporting her four children in India after her husband’s death. She had worked as a cook in Doha, Dubai and Saudi Arabia in the past without any problems.
During her 22-year stay in Pakistan, Bano married a Pakistani man from Karachi, who died of Covid-19. Since then, she had been living with her stepson. — With inputs from PTI
