A SEVEN-year-old boy whose family was wiped out in a car crash in Pakistan has finally made it home after a nine-month custody battle.

Qasim Mohammed Akbar was the only survivor of a horror smash which killed his dad Ali Akbar Khan, 59, mum Riffit Rukhsana and sisters Hajira, two and Ashia, eight, on New Year’s Day.

Ever since, his brother Abid Ali, 34, of Ontario Close, Blackburn, has been fighting a custody battle to bring him back to East Lancashire after a counter claim by family friends to keep him in Pakistan was lodged.

Mr Ali, a chef in Clitheroe, said he was incredibly pleased to be back home after months of court cases and legal wrangling.

He said: “On the plane as we came in to land at Manchester Qasim just shouted out ‘Yes’. I woke him up and he looked out of the window and his face lit up.

“He didn’t believe it was ever going to happen.

“We are all overjoyed to have him back and now he is a very happy little child.

“I’d see him every day in court when I was eventually allowed access after four months. There were a lot of strangers around and it was intimidating, but at least I could finally speak to him and reassure him.

“He would ask ‘when can we go home?’. I wanted to keep his hopes up and said ‘tomorrow’ or ‘next week’, but in the end he just gave up asking.

“He told me he never wants to go back to Pakistan.”

Little Qasim has now begun to open up about his memories of the crash, which happened in thick fog, near Faisalabad in the Punjab Province, while the family were on an extended holiday.

“He said he saw everything. He was sat in the front passenger seat, which he always liked to do, with his mum and sisters in the back and our dad was driving,” Mr Ali said.

“He told me he saw the truck at the last second and knew they were going to hit so he ducked down.

“That instinct saved his life because the others all died from head injuries.

“I’ve been to the scene and seen images of the crash. It is something that I will never forget, so I can’t imagine what it is like for him.

“He gets really, really upset. I don’t press him about it, but if he wants to talk, I listen.”

Mr Ali said he had now gone from having a little brother to another son, as Qasim is a similar age to his other three children.

He hopes to send him to the same school in Blackburn.

“He is all I’ve got left of my dad and I am so thankful that he is alive and back home,” he added.

Mr Ali was initially falsely accused of kidnapping his brother when he went over to Pakistan to bring him back to the UK.

He had to leave his wife and young family in Blackburn to fight the ‘lonely’ custody battle through the courts, and even when he fought off several appeals, he still had to wait for Qasim’s passport to be released.

He said they spent their last few days waiting to fly out hiding away in a safe house and ‘living like prisoners’ with the fear that Qasim would be snatched off the street.

Mr Ali said: “For the past nine months all I’ve been focused on is getting Qasim home.

“Now we are happy, but it is also time for me to grieve and remember my family. In the blink of an eye I’ve lost almost everything.”

The Khan family ran an off-licence in Leeds Road, Nelson, but went away to celebrate Mr Khan’s retirement.

The truck the family crashed into had been parked at the side of the dual carriageway bypass for two days and had been given a parking ticket. Mr Ali said he had asked the Pakistan Police why it hadn’t been moved.

He said: “I don’t think I’m going to get any answers. We’ve always thought that as we are British citizens if anything happened to us abroad our government would be there to help.

"But we’ve had very little assistance from the High Commission or the Embassy."