India seeking Pakistan response on missing Indian engineer

India said Friday that it has written to Pakistan more than 15 times but received no reply so far on the whereabouts of a 27-year-old engineer, Nihal Hamid Ansari, who has been untraceable since he crossed over to Pakistan from Afghanistan in November 2012.

According to external affairs ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin, the man's mother moved the Peshawar High Court and the matter is with it at present.

His parents, mother Fauzia and father Nihal Ahmed Ansari, are in touch with the ministry over their son's disappearance.

"We have written to Pakistan authorities more than 15 times but we have not received any response from them about his (Ansari's) being in Pakistan. We hope the court that is seized of the matter will be helpful in this regard.

"The parents have been trying for the last two years, and we wish them every success. We will assist them in any manner we can within the constraints of our bilateral relationship with Pakistan," Akbaruddin said.

Ansari went for a job interview in Afghanistan in November 2012 and disappeared after that. His parents went through social media and learnt that he had exchanged several messages with a woman in Pakistan.

His parents believe that he crossed over from Afghanistan to Pakistan, said the spokesperson.

"His parents are leaving no stone unturned to find out about his whereabouts," he said. Ansari's family sought help from his friends on Facebook and NGOs in Pakistan where he is believed to have last been seen.

According to media reports, his father is a banker while his mother teaches in a college.

Ansari had apparently entered Pakistan via Jalalabad. He had met a girl from Pakistan on Facebook who was being forcibly married off by her relatives and needed help to escape, his father told the media earlier.

A Pakistan media report dated July 2 said the Peshawar High Court has "directed the federal government to submit its report of the ministries of interior and defence regarding an Indian national who came to Kohat through Afghanistan and has been missing since November 2012".

The petition says Delhi Rotary Club president Nihal Hamid Ansari had come to Afghanistan to find a job in the aviation industry. It further reads that Ansari had developed relations with a girl, who is a resident of Kohat, through social media. The court learnt that Ansari was picked up by unidentified persons from a hotel in Kohat on Nov 12, 2012 and his whereabouts have remained unknown since then.