Dhaka: A Bangladeshi man, who languished in Pakistani prisons for 15 years as a suspected "Indian spy", died today four years after his return to the country.
Moslemuddin Sarkar, 50, died after suffering from diabetes and kidney failure.
"He returned home with a broken health four years ago... he eventually died today at his village home as he was suffering from multiple complications including diabetics and renal problems which he developed during his imprisonment in Pakistan," Sarkar's nephew Abdullah Al Mamun told PTI.
Sarkar left home at the age in 1989 and went to India and then to Pakistan without a passport. He was detained by Pakistani authorities from near the Indian border six years later when he was returning home, Mamun said.
"They (Pakistanis) suspected him as an Indian spy and in the subsequent 15 years he languished in prisons there until the Red Cross intervened," Mamun said.
For 23 years, Mamun said, Sarkar's family in a village in northern Mymensingh district knew nothing about his whereabouts. They thought he was dead.
But one day they received a letter from Sarkar in which he informed them that he was in a Pakistani jail.
"We then sought Red Cross assistance and with their intervention he was freed and returned home... But it took over a month for him regain his Bengali accent as he was almost forgot his mother tongue while in captivity, but he could not regain his health," Mamun said.
After his return from Pakistan in 2012, Sarkar had said he spent 15 years in prison in various jails of Pakistan.
He had said he first crossed into India, touring New Delhi, Assam and Meghalaya and then preferred to visit Pakistan in search of work.
