A 65-year-old woman suspected of being a Pakistani national and a fugitive, who broke out of a Nepal prison, has been arrested in Sabroom, a border town in South Tripura district. Authorities believe she
was attempting to enter Bangladesh.
According to Sabroom police officer Nityananda Sarkar, the woman—who identified herself as Louis Nighat Akhtar Bhano—was initially detained by the Government Railway Police (GRP) at the local railway station, NDTV reported. She was later handed over to Sabroom police for further questioning.
“It is suspected that she came with the intention to cross over to the other side of the border to Bangladesh. Police and other security agencies are interrogating her to gather more information about her movements and intentions,” NDTV quoted Sarkar as saying.
Preliminary investigations indicate that the hexagenarian escaped from a Nepalese jail, where she had been imprisoned on drug trafficking charges. Her nationality is yet to be officially confirmed, but police suspect links to Pakistan.
Reports suggest Bhano is married to Md Golaf Faraj, a resident of Sheikhupura in Pakistan. She is said to have entered Nepal around 12 years ago using a Pakistani passport and subsequently became involved in narcotics smuggling.
In 2014, Bhano was arrested in Nepal with one kilogram of brown sugar and sentenced to 15 years in prison. She had been serving her sentence at Kathmandu Jail until her alleged escape last month during widespread unrest in the Himalayan nation.
Nepal witnessed mass jailbreaks in September 2025 amid violent anti-government demonstrations, during which more than 13,000 inmates fled prisons across the nation. Many of them were later caught while trying to cross into India.
Tripura police said the woman will be presented before a local court, where investigators are likely to seek her custody for further interrogation and verification of her cross-border links.
