Jaipur: Over a thousand Pakistani migrant Hindus from Pakistan, who crossed over to India after getting valid visas were provided with the Indian citizenship. These Hindus are mostly from the backward classes and were facing persecution and they crossed over to India after obtaining the valid travel document.
This was the information provided to the Rajasthan High Court at Jodhpur by the state government. The state government received a total of 3090 applications for grant of citizenship. Out of this, the state government rejected 434 applications as the papers submitted by them to qualify for the citizenship were not proper.
The state government informed a double bench of Justice Sangeet Lodha and Justice Dinesh Mehta that as per the procedure the applications for the citizenship are given to the intelligence bureau for its report and out of the 2656 cases that were sent to the IB for its report, the state government has received approval of 2314 and the reports of the 342 applicant s the inquiries are still pending.
The applications of 242 persons are still pending at the level of the Collectors at various levels. The applications for 244 children are also pending.
According to the norms of the new Citizenship Act, a migrant who stays for seven years in the state can ask for citizenship. There are over 8000 Pakistani migrants, who came on valid travel document from Pakistan and who were given the visa for one particular village, town or city and particular district and were not allowed to move to a new place are facing problems from the district administration of Bikaner.
The Bikaner district administration following the Pulwama terror attack has served them notice to move to such respective places s for which they were given the visas. The medical facilities of such migrants have been withdrawn. These people work on daily wages to earn their livelihood. A large number of these migrants do not want to return to Pakistan as they fear persecution and conversions.
