Rafeudeen was arrested in Pakistan in 2006, days after after he managed to procure a Pakistani passport on a fake name and applied for Indian visa, which was denied. He claimed that a dispute with his father had made him leave and cross over through the Attari border to Pakistan — where his uncle lived.

Rafeudeen entered Pakistan in 1989 and reached Karachi, where he took up the job of polishing furniture until 2006 when he was arrested after the police learnt that he was an Indian national. He spent six years in a Karachi jail before being repatriated.

“A few years after reaching Pakistan, I often thought of returning to India. I started exploring possibilities of getting a Pakistani passport and then a visa for India. Towards the end of 2005, I managed to get a passport on fake name Tahir Maqsood. I desperately wanted to be with my family in India,” said Rafeudeen.

He added: “I applied for Indian visa, but since I was single and it was a fresh passport, I was denied the visa. In the meantime, my landlord in Karachi informed the police about me being an Indian. When I reached Karachi from Islamabad after my visa request was turned down in 2006, I was arrested.”