Foreign Office (FO) Spokesperson Dr Muhammad Faisal on Monday took to Twitter to announce that Indian spy Hamid Nehal Ansari was being released and repatriated to India.

Faisal said that the Indian spy had illegally entered Pakistan and been involved in "anti-state crimes and forging documents".

A Peshawar High Court (PHC) bench on December 13 had directed the interior ministry to make arrangements for the deportation of the Indian national within one month of the completion of his three-year prison term on Dec 15.

The PHC bench had observed that government departments should make all arrangements before the completion of Ansari's prison term, as keeping him in detention beyond the sentence would tarnish the image of the country.

Ansari had gone missing in 2012 from Kohat. A freelance Pakistani journalist who began investigating his disappearance from Kohat, Zeenat Shahzadi, had also gone missing soon after. Her kidnapping was considered by human rights activists as a case of “enforced disappearance”.

Soon after her kidnapping, government agencies had admitted that the missing Indian was in their custody.

It later emerged that Ansari had been in the army's custody and convicted by a Field General Court Martial on charges of espionage and anti-state activities on Dec 15, 2015. He had been sentenced to three years.

He had reportedly denied the charges and claimed that he had visited Pakistan to help a female Facebook friend in Kohat who claimed to be in trouble.

Shahzadi was recovered in October 2017, but has been off the radar along with her family ever since.