Indian forces showed a gesture of humanitarian responsiveness and responsibility under rules yet again when a 35-year-old woman from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) was repatriated from Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district to Pakistan on Wednesday, nine days after she inadvertently crossed the Line of Control (LoC).
Shahnaz Akhter, a resident of village Mohra Shareef in Kotli district, was apprehended by Army troops soon after she intruded into the Indian side near Dabi post in Mendhar sector on December 16.The woman was later handed over to police for questioning, the officials said.Her questioning revealed that she had inadvertently intruded into this side after getting lost in the forest while grazing her sheep, they said.Accordingly, the Army contacted their Pakistani counterparts and confirmed her antecedents, the officials said.
They said she was handed over to the Pakistan army at Chakan-Da-Bagh border crossing point in presence of police and civil officials after completion of legal formalities Wednesday evening. Repatriations that have occurred are primarily limited to individuals who inadvertently crossed the Line of Control (LoC) or legally specified deportations of Pakistani nationals through official border crossings.
At least two PoK residents who inadvertently crossed the LoC were repatriated from the Indian side to Pakistan in 2025 who included a mentally unstable man in February and a woman in December. The mentally challenged man from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) inadvertently crossed the Line of Control (LoC) into India, prompting his family to appeal for his safe return.
Yasir Faiz, 32, a resident of Tetrinote village in PoK, was taken into custody by Indian police in Salotri, a border village, early this year. The incident occurred after Faiz, who suffers from severe depression, fled a hospital in Rawalakot where he had been receiving psychiatric treatment earlier that day.The body of an 18-year-old PoK youth, recovered from the Kishanganga River, was also repatriated on humanitarian grounds in August 2025.
Broader deportations of Pakistani nationals from India through the Attari/Wagah border in 2025 involved several hundred people, including those on expired visas or who completed jail terms, but these were not specific to PoK residents.
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