According to film producer Mushtaq Nadiadwala, who claims that his two young children have been held captive in Pakistan by his Pakistani wife since 2020, the Central government has asked the Pakistani government for information about the whereabouts of Nadiadwala’s two minor children but has not yet received a response.
Tuesday, while a division bench presided over by Justice S. B. Shukre was hearing a petition filed by Nadiadwala seeking an order to the government to facilitate the safe return of his two children, a 9-year-old son and a 6-year-old daughter from Pakistan, the Ministry of External Affairs provided a status report.
According to the status report, the Indian government asked the Islamic Republic of Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide the two minor children of Nadiadwala urgent consular access in September 2022 via its High Commission in Islamabad.
The Pakistani government was also asked by the Indian government for information on the whereabouts of the children and the status of their citizenship and visas. According to the study, two further reminders were issued in October 2022 and February 2023.
According to the report, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Pakistan, has not yet responded to the three notes that were issued by the High Commission of India in Islamabad.
It also stated that the Pakistani government had received a second reminder on March 13, 2023, to grant the petitioner’s two children immediate access to consular services and to provide information about their passports, visas, and whether any applications for citizenship changes had been filed with Pakistani authorities.
According to the report, “the government of India through its High Commission in Islamabad is following up the matter with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pakistan, in an effort to learn more about the two minor children’s whereabouts and is continuing to pursue the matter with the Government of Pakistan.”
On March 28, the high court scheduled a hearing in the case.
Nadiadwala claimed in his court filing that his wife Maryam Chaudhary and her relatives had wrongfully imprisoned his children in Pakistan. He stated Maryam refused to leave for India and also declined to provide him any convincing justification for leaving.
According to the suit, Maryam relocated to India and registered for Indian citizenship before Nadiadwala married her in Pakistan in April 2012. After then, the couple had two kids.
Maryam and the two kids left India for Pakistan in November 2020.
She submitted a guardianship petition in Lahore in February 2021, and the court there approved it in order to designate her as the two children’s legitimate guardian. According to Nadiadwala, his wife may have been forced or indoctrinated into extending her stay in Pakistan.
The petition said that the unlawful confinement of the children in Pakistan was not only a flagrant violation of both nations’ immigration regulations but also significantly adverse to the general welfare and upbringing of the kids.
Moreover, it claimed that Maryam’s relatives are powerful figures in Pakistan.