The hopes of a 20-year-old boy from Osmanabad in Maharashtra to meet his “girlfriend” in Shah Faisal, Karachi, dashed to the ground when he was apprehended by the alert BSF just 1.5 km short of the Indo-Pak border in the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat before he could illegally cross over to the other side of the international boundary between the two countries.
The boy, Siddiqui Mohammad Zishan, had befriended the Pakistani girl through Facebook and WhatsApp and travelled from Osmanabad to Rann of Kutch on a motorcycle using Google map.
The crime branch of the Maharashtra Police had shared information with Gujarat police regarding a missing complaint lodged by Zishan’s parents at their native place in Osmanabad.
The Gujarat police in turn shared the information with the Border Security Force (BSF) following which the troops of the border guarding force were alerted. The troops apprehended him at 9 PM on Thursday.
His mobile location was traced to be in and around Dholavira (Kutch, Gujarat). During the search operation by the BSF in the afternoon on Thursday (July 16), a black colour Bajaj Pulsar bike (Registration Number: MH 16 D 3702) was recovered near Fossil Park in Kutch district which he had used to travel from his hometown and abandoned it before leaving towards the border area, a BSF spokesperson said here in a statement.
On preliminary enquiry, he was identified as Siddiqui Mohammad Zishan Mohammad Salimuddin, aged 20 years the BSF said.
The apprehended boy is a resident of Khwaja Nagar, Osmanabad, Maharashtra.
“He was in a dehydrated state and revealed that he had gone unconscious for about two hours in the Rann,” the spokesperson said.
PAN Card/Adhar Card/ATM CARD (UCO Bank) and mobile phone were recovered from his possession.
“He revealed that he fell in love with a girl namely Samra from Shah Faisal Town, Karachi, Pakistan on Facebook and both of them were in contact with each other through Facebook and WhatsApp. He wanted to go to Pakistan and had used the Google map for navigation.
The person has been handed over to the police for further investigation and verification of the story given by him,” added the official.