ISLAMABAD: Pakistani-origin women married to Kashmiris have demanded full citizenship of Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir or be allowed to return their home country.
According to a report released by Kashmir Media Service, around 370 Pakistani women are married to Kashmiri men and are based in the Valley.
They were married to the Kashmiri men who had crossed into Azad Kashmir as a result of the atrocities by Indian forces in occupied Kashmir, but had in 2010 returned under a rehabilitation policy announced by the Omar Abdullah government. These Kashmiri men had brought along their wives, whom they had married in Pakistan and Azad Kashmir, and children.
The women complained that upon their arrival in occupied Jammu and Kashmir, the authorities had seized their passports and other travel documents and have since never been returned.
The report sharing ordeals of number of such women said that with no citizenship rights, these women have nowhere to go and are facing difficult circumstances due to Modi’s callous attitude.
Nearly 370 Pakistani brides living in IIOJK can’t visit their parents in Pakistan as their Kashmiri spouses are spending lives as ‘stateless’ in occupied Jammu and Kashmir. They are stuck in a place with no identity at all. The irony of the fact is, the report added, since these women have no documents, they can’t even own a SIM card and are thus unable to use cellular phone to call up their relatives across the border.
As per these women, Indian govt’s so-called ‘Rehabilitation Policy’ proved a hoax for these Pakistani brides who regularly hold protests in Srinagar seeking their return to Pakistan.
They are ruing the day they stepped in blockaded Jammu and Kashmir. The issue of these women needs to be dealt on humanitarian basis, the report said quoting human rights activists.
