Indian woman duped by travel agent returns home from Pakistan after 22 years

Lahore: An Indian woman who was living in Pakistan for the last 22 years after being fraudulently brought here by a travel agent returned to her homeland via the Wagah Border in Lahore on Monday, an official said.

Hamida Bano, originally from Mumbai, arrived in Hyderabad, Pakistan, in 2002. According to her, an agent deceived her with the promise of a job in Dubai but instead brought her to Hyderabad district of Pakistan's Sindh province.

“On Monday she arrived here by plane from Karachi and subsequently she crossed into India via Wagah Border. The foreign affairs ministry officials saw her off,” a government official told PTI.

Bano expressed her joy to reunite with her family. She said she had lost hope of ever returning to India but she was lucky to see this day.

In 2022, Waliullah Maroof, a local YouTuber, shared her ordeal that Hamida Bano left India in 2002 after a recruitment agent promised to get her a job as a cook in Dubai. Instead, she was tricked and trafficked to Pakistan. Maroof’s vlog helped her connect with her family in India. Her daughter Yasmeen spoke to her by phone as well.

In a talk with Maroof, Hamida Bano said before coming to Pakistan she had been financially supporting her four children in India after her husband's death. She had worked as a cook in Doha, Qatar, Dubai and Saudi Arabia in the past without any problems.

During her 22-year stay in Pakistan, Bano married a Pakistani man from Karachi, who died of Covid-19. Since then, she had been living with her stepson.