MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan: A Vietnamese man has been detained for months in Pakistani Kashmir by puzzled authorities who were unable to understand him, officials said Thursday.

Vu Gia Po was arrested after being discovered wandering on foot without any identification in the town of Athmuqam, which lies on the Line of Control, police official Yasin Abbasi said.

The Line of Control is a heavily militarized zone and the de facto border between Pakistan and Indian-administered Kashmir, which the two countries have fought two wars over.

A Vietnamese government spokesman in Hanoi said Po was detained “around October 2013.”

Pakistani officials were initially clueless about who he was and where had had come from.

“He looked Chinese or Japanese but could not speak any local language, he had no travel documents, no identification, nothing,” Abbasi told AFP.

“He could not speak or understand English and we were not able to speak his language, it was a nightmare,” he said.