Over 7,000 Pakistani Hindus cleared for Indian citizenship

More than 7,000 Pakistani nationals living in India even after their visas expired seeking permanent residency will be able to get Indian citizenship.

In a communication to Punjab Rajya Sabha MP, Avinash Rai Khanna, the Union home secretary has said that those Pakistani nationals living in India, who have not been able to procure renunciation certificates from their country – which were earlier mandatory for getting Indian citizenship – would also be considered for Indian citizenship.

The government of India has identified 7,635 such Pakistani nationals in the country who have been living here before December 2004. Their cases would be taken up on an individual basis.

Khanna said the government has adopted a humanitarian approach and relaxed the norms on renunciation certificates.

“People would now be able to get the same from Indian authorities by simply submitting an affidavit,” he added.
These are mostly Hindu families who fled Pakistan following a growing number of incidents of rape and looting by the extremist elements. Besides Rajpura, these families from Pakistan are settled in Amritsar, Jalandhar, Panipat and Karnal.

Now, citizenship cases would be processed on a case-to-case basis considering an affidavit filed before the authority prescribed under rule 38 of the Citizenship Rule, 2009, as renunciation certificate.

Khanna said there were around 25 members of three families residing in Peer Colony area of Neelpur village in Rajpura, about 45 km from here, who  came to India in 1994 and since then had been doing menial jobs to make both ends meet.

“We are living without voter ID cards, ration cards, and our passports have expired. We moved to India following riots near Loralai in Balochistan in 1994 in which our houses were burnt,” said Rajesh, a Pakistani Hindu.

As per the letter, certain categories of foreigners (especially Pak nationals) have been exempted from the provisions of Passport (entry into India) Rules, 1950, to facilitate grant of long-term visas. The Indian government had also issued a gazette notification on May 15, 2010, in this regard.

However, the main problem was getting renunciation certificate, which Pakistani authorities issue. The ostensible reason behind the Pakistani government not issuing such a certificate was that most of the people did not possess computerised national IDs. This situation arose because when such field work was being done in Pakistan, these people were living in India.

“Life in Pakistan was hell, especially for girls. As Pakistani nationals, we have to go back once every five years and visit our embassy in New Delhi every two years to get our stay permit renewed. We are scared to go back because of the harassment meted out to the members of the minority communities,” said Naam Singh, who hails from Peshawar.