March 28: Islamabad today confirmed that Abdul Karim from Bengal’s North Dinajpur district is being held in a jail in Pakistan.

The deputy superintendent of Rawalpindi Adiala Jail, Mohsin Rafiq, told The Telegraph: “I confirm that Abdul Karim is imprisoned in Adiala Jail for the last one year. He is an Indian national who was sentenced to five years in jail. I don’t know what his crime was but he was brought to this jail from Punjab’s Jhelum city after being sentenced there.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had “stumbled” upon Abdul in the Rawalpindi jail. The 22-year-old went missing from a Punjab madarsa almost three years ago.

The Red Cross team that had visited Abdul’s house in Betabi village, 50km from Islampur town, had said they did not know how he landed in Pakistan.

While Rafiq refused to disclose any further information because of the “sensitivity of the issue”, a jail official said on condition of anonymity that the duration of the sentence shows that Abdul might have been charged for a minor crime like illegal overstay.

Rafiq, however, said neither had the Red Cross approached the jail authorities nor was he aware when Abdul was arrested.

In Islamabad, a spokesperson for the Red Cross, Marco Sushi, said he did not want to discuss the issue. “We do not disclose findings or information that we have with us on such sensitive issues,” Sushi said. “I can neither confirm nor deny reports about Karim (Abdul). If we disclose such information, nobody will ever allow us to visit jails.”

On hearing that Islamabad has confirmed his son’s arrest, Mohammed Tajuddin and his wife Gulshan Begum said they would visit Delhi and camp there to lobby with the foreign office to initiate proceedings for his release.

“We will request the foreign ministry to do something so that our son is released,” said Tajuddin, a home guard with Panjipara police outpost.

The couple have also decided to approach local MP and Union minister Priya Ranjan Das Munshi and seek his help to get in touch with foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee.

“We will approach Das Munshi when he comes to Dalkhola (also in North Dinajpur) tomorrow,” Tajuddin said. Abdul had been sent to the Patiala madarsa in 2003. His letters stopped coming to his family in 2005. The family had presumed he was dead till the Red Cross brought a letter from him in December last year.

Pradesh Congress Committee member from North Dinajpur Golam Rabbani said he, too, would request Das Munshi to help the couple so that they got their son back.

“Although no one has approached me from Abdul’s family, I will on my own ask Das Munshi to use his influence in Delhi and get the boy back,” Rabbani said.