Rabindranagar / Sonamura (West Tripura), Oct. 11: Parental affection appeared to have taken a back seat in the impoverished house of rickshawpuller Dudhu Mia (45) when he heard of the return of his long-lost daughter Ranora alias Jakhia Khatun (21) to India across the Wagah border yesterday. The girl had been in captivity in Pakistan after she was forced into that country and later jailed as an illegal migrant.
The rickshawpuller, who heads a family of 12, said while he was happy to get news of his daughter and her safe return, he did not know how to feed another member.
Last night, a news agency reported that a Muslim girl from Rabindranagar village in West Tripura’s Sonamura subdivision had been released by Pakistani authorities and handed over to Indian officials across the Wagah border in Punjab.
Dudhu Mia told visiting mediapersons the tragic tale of his daughter. “My second daughter, Ranora Khatun alias Jakhia, had been married to Muktal Hossain (26) in Surjyanagar village just across the Sahapur border in Comilla district of Bangladesh in the year 1997 when she was just 15,” he said.
“Suddenly I heard from Ranora’s father-in-law in January 2000 that my daughter was missing,” said Dudhu Mia. He visited Ibrahim Hossain’s house in Bangladesh and came to know that his son-in-law was also missing but kept quiet about it. He said Muktal Hossain had returned home in August 2000 and had even re-married, having sold Ranora at Chittagong in Bangladesh.
Ranora was taken by her “buyers” to Karachi by ship and forced to marry an elderly Sindhi man in lieu of Rs 1.2 lakh. Forced to live in her new husband’s house, Ranora was booked by Pakistani police and put in jail as an illegal migrant. In the meantime, police personnel contacted panchayat authorities in Rabindranagar and took Dudhu Mia’s address and a formal certificate testifying his permanent residence here in July last year, following directives from Delhi. On the basis of records sent from Tripura by central intelligence authority, Ranora was released yesterday.
