Pakistani woman granted citizenship in J&K

SRINAGAR: At a time when many parts of the country are on the boil over contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act, a Pakistani woman married to a Jammu and Kashmir resident has been granted Indian citizenship by the government.

The beneficiary is Khatija Parveen who was born in Pakistan but migrated to Jammu and Kashmir after her marriage with Muhammad Taj, a resident of the (now) Union Territory's frontier Poonch district a few years ago.

Poonch's deputy commissioner Rahul Yadav said that Ms Khatija has been issued Certificate of Registration, granting Indian citizenship, under Section 5(1)(c) of the Citizenship Act, 1955 on the basis of her marriage to an Indian citizen.

She received the citizenship document from the DC at the latter’s office on Monday. The couple expressed happiness and thanked the ministry of home affairs for giving its go-ahead to issuing her the document.

This has rekindled hope among hundreds of Pakistani women married to former militants of J&K. They may make a fresh plea before the authorities to grant them Indian citizenship which has been denied to them, so far, by the government.

Before J&K was stripped of its special status and split up into two Union Territories on August 5, these Pakistani spouses of former militants had organised a series of  demonstrations in Srinagar to demand that they be either sent back to their native country or granted citizenship of the (erstwhile) state.

Article 35A of the Constitution which has since been repealed along with Article 370 empowered the J&K Legislature to define “permanent residents” of the state and provide special rights and privileges to those permanent residents. Also, J&K had its own state-subject law in force since 1927 under which only permanent residents could own land and other immovable properties in the (erstwhile) state.

These Pakistani women had accompanied their husbands to the Valley under the government’s rehabilitation policy. Under this policy announced by the then Omar Abdullah-led National Conference-Congress coalition government, around 212 former militants returned to J&K front Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) through Nepal and other routes between 2010 and 2012.

Though the government had received as many as 1,082 applications from such youth who had crossed the Line of Control (LoC) apparently to receive arms training, the government had approved only 219 cases after security clearance.

The Pakistani spouses of the former militants claim that they are living in “miserable conditions” in the Valley.