After going missing in the 1970s, an elderly man from Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has been found living in Iran. Earlier this week, his family reconnected with him for the first time in decades via a video call arranged by Arab News.
Mumtaz Khan left his home in Upper Dir district and traveled to Karachi after his father scolded him for not financially contributing to the family. “Our elders told us that he left home the day his father reprimanded him for not earning anything,” said his nephew, Nasir Khan.
Many people from Upper Dir traveled to Karachi during that time to secure a livelihood, and some even continued their journey to places like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Mumtaz decided to go to Iran without informing his family after some of his friends convinced him to accompany them to the neighboring country to earn more money. At that time, border controls with Iran and Afghanistan were not too tight, and it was possible to cross the porous frontier without carrying necessary travel documents, according to Shafiqullah Khan, a cloth merchant in Iran’s Chabahar port city.
Mumtaz arrived in Chabahar with his friends on a bus and began working in the construction industry as a laborer. He got married in Iran and has two sons and two daughters who are Iranian citizens. However, he has neither Pakistani nor Iranian nationality.
The news of Mumtaz’s discovery quickly went viral, and his family was overjoyed to see him after all these years. “We don’t know how to express happiness,” Nasir Khan said. “It is like my uncle has got a new life.”
The family’s search for Mumtaz ended three weeks ago after they saw his video circulated by Shafiqullah Khan. “After tracing Mumtaz Khan’s relatives and brothers in Pakistan, I connected him with his relatives to talk to one another,” said Khan.
Mumtaz’s younger brother, Gulabbudin Khan, said his family did not believe the video initially. “For years, we were unable to trace him despite hectic efforts,” he said. “But his recent viral video led us to identify and connect with him.”
Now, the family is hoping to facilitate Mumtaz’s return to his hometown in Pakistan. “We can’t wait to be reunited with Mumtaz Khan,” Gulabbudin Khan said. “We want the government to facilitate his return to Pakistan.”
source: Arab news pk
