Author: Nirmal Sandhu
Publication: Tribune News
Date: January 19, 2001
About 35 families of Hindus which
left Pakistan after 1971 and landed at Kalian village, 7 km from
here, are still unsettled, trying for Indian citizenship.
They arrived here on Pakistani
passports which expired years back and which need renewal to legalise their
stay. They have no money to review their passports and they are determined
not to back, fearing persecution.
Besides Kalian village, families
of Pakistani Hindus, as they are called by local residents,
also now reside at other villages and towns of Rajasthan
like Jatsar, Vijaynagar, 3LC, Pandatanwali, Amargarh and
Suratgarh, besides Rania and Ellenabad in Haryana and
Jalandhar in Punjab.
In total some 400 families
of Pakistani Hindus are scattered in these areas. Many of them came in
1983-84. There are curbs on their movement. They can't legally purchase
property, but some have acquired houses, it is learnt.
On paper they can't send children
to school or get employment, or even get married. Ishwar Das Sindhi,
a spokesman of these families and residing at Kalian village, got a licence
to work as a deed writer in the local courts. When someone complained that
he was a Pakistani Hindu, the administration withdrew the licence.
He has now gone to court to contest this. He is the only deed writer
in English and Urdu here. He speaks Punjabi and doesn't know Hindi.
With such curbs and without any
relief or help from anywhere, these nowhere people are now piqued at the
latest directive of the Union Home Ministry requiring
them to renew their passports.
Renewal of each passport costs about
Rs 1,800. Each family has at least three or four members. With limited
or little income, they are hard pressed to cough up such amounts.
For them the very survival is difficult.
Besides, the directive makes no
sense to them. Why should the Indian government tell them to
pay such large amounts to a country it regards as hostile,
they wonder. And why renew passports when they don't want to go back?
In a representation to the Rajasthan
Home Secretary, a copy of which was made available to The Tribune, signed
by 10 of their representatives based at Kalian, these families have demanded
withdrawal of the directive, extension of the visas and grant of Indian
citizenship to enable them to lead a normal life.
Most of these families are from
Sindh and Punjab provinces of Pakistan. Asked if they
suffered harassment in Pakistan, Ishwar Das said they were
under pressure to convert to Islam.
Showing a news item in Roznama
Jang with the heading in Urdu Hindu nauzwan ka Islam kabool
and with a photograph of the youth, the report, as read out by Ishwar Das's
son, described how one Sewak Ram chose to become Shaukat Ali. Sewak Ram
fled Pakistan and now lives in Faridabad. He is married to a girl
of Kalian village.
