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Mon, 27th Oct 2008  Pakistani teenager Nasir Sultan had crossed the border and stepped into India innocently, the Punjab Police said on Sunday, a day after the Hindustan Times reported his detention.
Ferozepur district police chief Dinesh Partap Singh told HT that after Nasir’s interrogation, it was clear that the boy had unknowingly violated the Indian Passport Act.
The 15-year-old from the North-West Frontier Province, who crossed the border to make it big in Bollywood just like his idol Shah Rukh Khan, was picked up by the Border Security Force and put behind bars in a juvenile home in Faridkot 41 days ago.
A case was registered against Nasir for entering India illegally at the Sadar police station, Ferozepur on August 18. He has been facing trial in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate-cum-Juvenile Court Jatinder Singh Behniwal in Ferozepur.
Faridkot Deputy Commissioner VK Meena, who on Saturday visited the juvenile home where Nasir is lodged, said that the district administration would be able to complete legal formalities for the boy’s release and repatriation only after a court decision on the matter.
In New Delhi, politicians cutting across party lines, lawyers and a senior journalist called upon the authorities to send the boy back home as Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said in Ludhiana that he could talk to the central government about letting Nasir go. “Nasir should have been sent back home a long time ago. Now, the mistake should be rectified,” veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar said.  | 
