Two months after her mother was deported from India, Falak Zahoor is disconsolate.
“If she had died, I would be at peace,” said Zahoor, a 32-year-old lawyer and Jammu resident. “[I would think] she has gone to another world and is with the Almighty. We would not be going through this hell.”
Zahoor’s 62-year-old mother, Rakshanda Rashid, was deported to Pakistan from India’s Attari border in Punjab on April 29, barely a week after the Pahalgam terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir killed 26 people.
Rashid has since been living alone in Lahore at a paying guest facility.
A Pakistani national, Rashid had married a man from the Jammu region in December 1989 and had been living in Jammu and Kashmir since then. She had a long-term visa, one of the categories exempt from the post-Pahalgam wave of deportations, which she had been renewing annually for three decades. At the time of Rashid’s expulsion, her visa renewal application had been pending with the Union Ministry of Home Affairs for more than three months.
“What is our fault?” asked Zahoor. “As per procedure, we had applied for the extension of LTV [long-term visa] before its expiry. The government was sitting on our application for three months without either accepting or rejecting it.”
The day after Rashid was deported, her family filed a writ petition before the High court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. Nearly a month later, on June 6, a single-judge bench of the High Court ruled in Rashid’s favour, directing the Ministry of Home Affairs to bring her back within 10 days and reunite her with her family in Jammu.
But the Centre on June 29 challenged the repatriation order before a double bench, which issued an interim stay on July 2. In response to the fact that Rashid had applied for extension of her long-term visa on January 4, the ministry said that her application “was not approved by the competent authority”. Scroll has a copy of the documents.
Going by that logic, said Zahoor, her mother had been living in Jammu “illegally” since January 16. “Why didn’t they deport her earlier then?”
The bench asked the Ministry of Home Affairs to submit a response by July 17, the next date of hearing.
With Rashid’s case now caught in a legal tangle, her family has been worrying about how long she will be able to live alone in Lahore. “She has already suffered a paralysis attack in the past. Her eyesight is weak and she uses contact lenses,” said Zahoor. “How can such an individual survive alone?”
Deportation and then a court order
Ever since she got married, the only family Rashid knew was her husband and her two children. Both her parents in Pakistan died in 1989. When she moved to India after her marriage, Rashid lost touch with her family in Pakistan.
According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, a long-term visa is granted to Pakistani and Bangladeshi women who are married to Indian nationals and have arrived in India on valid travel documents with an intent to acquire Indian citizenship.
“My mother’s long-term visa had expired on January 16 and like every year, we had applied for its extension nearly two weeks before it did,” said Zahoor.
She said it usually takes 40-60 days for the government to issue an extension. But this time, the government had taken more than three months to process the application.
When the Pahalgam attack took place, Rashid’s application was still under process. Those exempt from expulsion were people with long-term visas and those on medical, diplomatic and official visas.
However, on April 28, Rashid received a “leave India notice” from the local police in Jammu. With nobody ready to listen to their pleas, Rashid’s family complied with the government’s directions and she was deported on April 29.
When the family went to court the next day, the bench took up the plea on the argument that the home ministry’s orders had clearly exempted those with long-term visas and diplomatic visas, said Ankur Sharma, the legal counsel for Rashid’s family in Jammu.
Rashid, according to Sharma, had applied for Indian citizenship in 1996. “She even has No Objection Certificates from authorities that say they don’t have any objections if she becomes an Indian citizen,” he added.
Sharma added that it is normal for long-term visa applications to take time to be processed. “In case there’s a delay in processing the extension application on time, it’s considered granted unless it’s formally rejected by the authorities,” he said.
In Rashid’s case, Zahoor said that the Foreigners Registration Office, under the Ministry of Home Affairs, said the visa extension process was still underway. “In fact, I got an email on April 26 from the authorities that the application is under process.”
Not only that, on May 9 – more than 10 days after her mother had been deported to Pakistan – Zahoor got an official intimation from the Foreigners Registration Office about her mother’s long-term visa application being forwarded to the higher authorities.
While ordering the home ministry to repatriate Rashid, the single judge bench of Justice Rahul Bharti had said that Rashid was deported “without a proper, reasoned order”. “Human rights are the most sacrosanct component of a human life,” the bench said, ...there are occasions when a constitutional court is supposed to come up with SOS like indulgence notwithstanding the merits and demerits of a case which can be adjudicated only upon in due course of time.”
When she was deported, Rashid’s family gave her Rs 50,000 –the maximum currency allowed to be taken to the other side of the border. Without an expensive roaming connection, Rashid’s phone is not able to make or receive calls. “We only talk to her when she’s able to find a Wi-Fi connection,” said Zahoor.
“She’s all alone,” said Zahoor. “Whatever distant relatives we have there, they live in Rawalpindi and we don’t share a good equation with them.”
‘No visa’, claims MHA
The home ministry, in its appeal against the June 6 order, alleged that the High Court failed to appreciate the “national security considerations” and apprehension posed by Pakistani nationals in India due to the “war-like situation” between the two countries.
The home ministry said that the High Court’s order to repatriate Rashid was “constitutionally impermissible and unsustainable” since it meant extending the judicial writ beyond India to Pakistan.
“There exists no extradition treaty, legal instrument, or international obligation binding Pakistan to return her to India,” the ministry said. “The Indian government cannot, under existing international law, compel a sovereign nation to surrender a non-citizen.”
The ministry also told the court that being married to an Indian national did not grant Rashid to “claim a right to reside in India”. “It is well settled law that a foreign national does not acquire Indian nationality or legal residency rights solely by virtue of marriage,” said the ministry’s submission.
In its appeal, the home ministry has also said that the High Court order could “establish a dangerous precedent” since it could be used by foreign nationals for “personal repatriation”.
But the home ministry, soon after the Pahalgam terror attack, had on its own exempted the deportation of Pakistani Hindus whose long-term visa applications were “under process.”
Not only that, the exemption was also granted to Pakistani Hindus in India who had not applied for long-term visa status, provided they apply for it immediately. No such exemption, however, was granted to Rashid – a Muslim by faith. “Isn’t that discriminatory?” asked Zahoor. “If women from Hindu and Sikh community are exempted, why not my mother?”
