Give us citizenship rights or send us back: Pakistani wives of ex-militants

Ground Report | New Delhi: Pakistani wives of ex-militants; Pakistani wives of former Kashmiri militants on Monday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Singh to grant them citizenship rights or deport them back to Pakistan.

Addressing a press conference at Press Club Srinagar here, Pakistani brides said that most of them have been divorced by their husbands after traveling to this part of Kashmir since 2010 and many of them have already committed suicide.

Misbah, a Pakistani bride married to a local Kashmiri from the Handwara area of ​​Kupwara's northern district, said, "We are feeling insecure and are scared about the safety of our children in view of the prevailing situation." He was accompanied by other Pakistani brides.

“Given the current situation here, we are feeling completely insecure. We urge the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi to decide our fate once before he is killed here. We have a valid Pakistani passport and what is wrong with allowing us to go back to Pakistan. "We urge PM Modi and the LG of J&K and other high-level officials to either give us permanent citizenship or deport us back to Pakistan."

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Tobia said that “My husband also started a vegetable and fruit shop. We got married with the consent of our parents. Then came the ‘Surrender Scheme’ in 2011 and he insisted that he wanted to meet his parents, siblings”.

My parents forbade me and said that they were afraid that there would be no way back.

I can’t believe I also had a great interest in seeing Indian Kashmir. So he obeyed them. He wanted his family to meet me too, what else did a married woman have to do? Saying no could break the house, ruining the children’s lives.

We came to Kashmir on December 10, 2011, via Nepal. It was not in the four official routes mentioned in the ‘Surrender Scheme’ but the Pakistani administration was not allowing us to go through these routes. (Pakistani wives of ex-militants)

She said, “There are also many girls who get married in countries outside Pakistan-administered Kashmir but have no problem returning”.

“Why do we think India came? Why are these people angry? Why did you lie and bring us out of there? Everything just seems to lie” She added.

In 2010, the state government under Omar Abdullah ordered a policy change for returning of militants who had crossed over to Pakistan but wanted to give up arms and join the mainstream. The rehabilitation policy was meant for only those militants who had crossed over between January 1, 1989, and December 31, 2009.

The Jammu and Kashmir government is now considering a new policy to encourage militants from the state to give up arms, by providing them with a monthly stipend of Rs 6,000 among other benefits.

According to the draft, the policy details the need for rehabilitation through a two-pronged approach including reformative measures and opportunities of livelihood. However, this initiative will not cover militants found to have been involved in “heinous crimes”.

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The problem lies partly in the gaps left by the rehabilitation policy. In 2017, the state government revealed that only 377 former militants, along with 864 family members, had returned from Pakistan since 2010. They had all come via Bangladesh and Nepal, however, and not by the approved routes for “inexplicable reasons and difficulties”. So, the government made them ineligible for benefits under the policy.

So in 2010 the then Manmohan Singh government allowed such Kashmiri youths to return to Kashmir, all of whom returned to the valley with their Pakistani wives and children. However, when these women came into politics for an equal place in society, they faced various difficulties.'

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