The family of a 42-year-man from Madhya Pradesh’s Singrauli district detained on the Wagah border by Border Security Force (BSF) on Saturday has claimed he is mentally unstable, senior police officials have said.
Police in Singrauli, 780 kilometres northeast of Bhopal, received a phone call from the BSF on Saturday that a man identified as Mohammad Mushtaq was detained while trying to cross the international border with Pakistan.
A resident of Gobha village, Mushtaq had gone missing from his house on September 30.
“BSF officials contacted us to check the credentials of the man. His family said he was mentally unstable and he went missing from his house four days back,” Singrauli’s superintendent of police, Abhijeet Ranjan, said on Sunday.
“The family showed the medical reports and identity cards of the man to police. After verifying the facts, we sent a copy of reports and identity cards of the man to BSF,” Ranjan said.
The SP said “to the best of our knowledge” BSF officials were satisfied with the reports. The man was produced before the local sub-divisional magistrate’s (SDM) court and he was allowed to go, he said.
According to Mushtaq’s brother Mohammad Yaseen, he is a father of three children and his wife doesn’t live with him.
“A few years ago, our family was attacked by some villagers due to a land dispute. My brother was hit on his head. He turned mentally unstable due to head injuries. We took him to Allahabad, Nagpur and Rewa for treatment but he always ran away from the hospitals,” Yaseen said.
Mushtaq told him a few days ago that he would move to a place where he could earn some money but they didn’t know how he reached the border.
“As of now, we don’t know whether BSF has released him from its detention. We are taking the help of the local police to get my brother back,” he added.
In July, a mentally unstable man from Rewa was found in a Pakistan jail after he crossed the border inadvertently.
