New Delhi, May 25: The return of an Indian woman from Islamabad, facilitated by Pakistan's government, today drew rare praise for the neighbour from foreign minister Sushma Swaraj, temporarily shining a different light on a relationship trapped in the crossfire of allegations and bullets.

It is unclear whether the successful return of Uzma Ahmad, in her early 20s, will help prepare the domestic atmospherics the governments of both India and Pakistan need to resume any effort at a thaw in tensions.

But senior officials from the two countries told The Telegraph the incident had sparked hopes of a meeting between Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif early next month in Astana. India and Pakistan are formally joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation at its summit in Kazakhstan's capital, and both leaders are expected to attend.

The incident also reveals the intimate cooperation the neighbours can extend to each other at times despite the shrill military statements, courtroom drama and border tensions that set the public image of the bilateral relationship.

Delhi resident Uzma had visited Pakistan on May 1 to meet a man, Tahir, who she thought was a friend - they had met earlier in Malaysia.

Once she was in Pakistan, Tahir forced her into marrying him at gunpoint and abused her, Uzma has said. The Indian high commission sheltered her when she turned to the mission.

On Thursday, Uzma lauded Sushma, who spoke to her every second day while she was at the Indian mission and who told the embassy to ensure Uzma never had to return to Tahir.

But her return to India this morning also involved intense cooperation and coordination between the Indian mission and Pakistan's government.

"I want to thank the Pakistan foreign ministry and Pakistan home ministry," Sushma said. "Political relations and our differences have their place, but they helped us a lot - they dealt with this case in a humane manner."

Uzma has said in an affidavit to an Islamabad court that Tahir had met her when she crossed over into Pakistan at the Wagah border. Once they were in a car, Tahir drugged her, she has said.

She woke up only in Guner, in Pakistan's distant Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan and was overrun by the Taliban between 2008 and 2010.

In her affidavit, Uzma has said that Tahir and his family threatened her at gunpoint to sign a nikahnama - a marriage agreement.

The Delhi woman, who is separated from an Indian husband and has a three-year-old daughter here, today said Tahir had threatened to hurt the child too through "friends he said he had" in the Indian capital. When Indian officials later examined Uzma, they found marks of physical assault on her body.

A few days after signing the nikahnama, Uzma persuaded Tahir to visit Islamabad with her and to approach the Indian high commission for a visa so that they could travel to India. Tahir agreed.

On May 5, the couple visited the high commission. There, at the visa counter, Uzma signalled to the Indian official that she needed to speak with him. She was called in while Tahir waited.

Once inside, she broke down. The Indian high commissioner in Islamabad, Gautam Bambawale, was in New Delhi at the time for a meeting of India's overseas heads of missions. Officials called for J.P. Singh, the deputy high commissioner. It was 3.45pm.

"I still remember the fear on her face," Singh recalled today. After confirming her nationality, Singh tried reaching Bambawale and foreign secretary S. Jaishankar on the telephone. But both were busy at the meeting of heads of missions. He decided to allow Uzma to stay at the mission.

"It was simultaneously a difficult and an easy decision," Singh said. "Our resources at the mission in Islamabad are thin, but once it was clear that Uzma's life was at risk, we knew we had to keep her."

Uzma stayed the next 20 days at the high commission while Tahir approached an Islamabad court claiming the mission had abducted his wife. She responded with a plea for the annulment of her "marriage" and her return to India.

Today, Uzma touched Indian soil and smeared it on her forehead right after crossing from Wagah. She repeatedly thanked Sushma and Singh -- who had coordinated her stay at the mission and her legal case at the court - for helping her return.

"It means so much that you have a minister like Sushma ma'am, who cares so much, and who kept telling me that I am like her own daughter, and am a daughter of India," Uzma said, sitting next to the Indian minister at a media interaction this evening. "I feel proud to be an Indian."

Sushma highlighted the role Singh and the Indian mission had played. "Every Indian should know, that if they are in trouble abroad, their first port of call should be the Indian mission," she said.

Like Sushma, Singh too detailed the "contribution" of the Pakistani government.

After Uzma shared her story with Singh, Pakistan's foreign ministry had agreed to a meeting within an hour to understand the case and assist in her repatriation to India. The Pakistani foreign ministry also directed the Indian mission on the steps it would need to take. "They guided us too," Singh said.

At the Islamabad High Court, Justice Mohsin Ahmed Kayani first heard Tahir and Uzma separately, then together. But he did not allow broader bilateral tensions to sway his judgment, Sushma said. A Pakistani lawyer picked by Singh defended Uzma.

"Tahir in his petition told the judge: 'Sir, this is a matter of Pakistan's izzat (dignity)'," Sushma said. "But the judge asked him what the case had to do with India-Pakistan relations."

On Wednesday, Kayani ordered that Uzma be allowed to return to India as soon as she wanted, and declared that Pakistan was obliged to provide her security till the Wagah border.

Pakistan's interior ministry, which Sushma referred to as the home ministry, rushed the documentation needed for Uzma's return, allowing her to reach her family in Delhi today.