India returns runaway Pakistani boys to their families

Nadir Ali Ansari kisses his son Azhar Ansari, 17, who sits with his mother upon his return from India, after the teenager ran away from home with his 11-year-old cousin, in Hyderabad, Pakistan on Friday, April 18, 2008. The two boys who ran away from home and sneaked across the heavily guarded Indian border were back in Pakistan on Friday after Indian authorities swiftly deported them. (AP Photo/Abrar Ahmed)

KARACHI, Pakistan—Two boys who ran away from home and sneaked across the heavily guarded Indian border were reunited with their families in Pakistan on Friday after Indian authorities deported them.

Azhar Ansari, 17, and Zohaib Ali, 11, shocked their relatives when they appeared on television April 14 telling Indian police that they had run away because their parents beat them with sticks to make them go to school.

On Friday, the older boy claimed in a telephone interview with The Associated Press that Indian border guards beat them, deprived them of sleep and gave them little food after they were caught.

"I cannot forget what I experienced -- I really regret what I did," said Azhar, who added that he now understood the reasons for his treatment by his parents. "Now I realize they did it for my own welfare."

Their families had looked for the boys for nearly a week. Azhar said the two had hoped to reach a relative in the Indian city of Jodhpur. He thought it would be a relatively simple trek, and that the border, being so long, could easily be crossed.

Instead, the two young cousins found themselves caught in the middle of the long and bitter rivalry between India and Pakistan.

Some people who illegally crossed the border -- whether deliberately or by accident -- have spent many years in grim Indian or Pakistani jails, often accused of spying. But police in the Indian state of Rajahstan, where the two minors were arrested last week, had said they would likely be deported quickly if their tale turned out to be true.

"We always read in newspapers that many Pakistanis are languishing in Indian jails for crossing the border illegally and it is no less than a miracle that my son and nephew have come back safely and so early," Azra Nadir, the mother of the elder runaway, told the AP by telephone.

She thanked officials on both sides for ending the family's anguish.

Indian border guards handed over the boys at a frontier crossing called Zero Point on Thursday, said Capt. Fazal Mahmood, a spokesman for Pakistan's paramilitary Rangers. The pair reached their hometown in the southern province of Sindh on Friday, where they were surrounded by media and relatives.

The boys' 10-day escapade began when they left their homes in Tando Allahyar, some 150 miles north of Karachi, on April 7 to go to school.

Their parents raised the alarm the next day after they failed to return.

But they only found out what had happened when they saw the TV footage of the boys telling Indian police how they had run away and dug under a barbed-wire border fence.

Azhar's father, Nadir Ansari, doesn't deny beating his son to try to boost his grades and job prospects. But he sounded more conciliatory after his release.

"I will be compassionate in trying to persuade Azhar to continue his studies," said Ansari, who runs a store for electrical goods. "If he is not willing I will take him with me to work in the shop."