Modi’s ongoing deportation drive tears IIOJK families apart
Srinagar: In an inhumane and politically motivated move, Indian authorities deported several people branding them as Pakistani nationals, many of them women married to Kashmiris, through the Wagah border on the direction of Indian government led by Narendra Modi.
According to Kashmir Media Service, among those deported is Riyaz Khan, a Kupwara resident, was deported to Pakistan, leaving behind his wife and three children. Riyaz Khan said his father was in the Indian Army and he had contested the election of District Development Council, Kupwara, yet he was being deported.
A resident of a border village in Kupwara, Riyaz had inadvertently crossed over to Pakistan when he was 12 years old. In 2007, when he was 24 years old, he returned to Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir through the Wagah border.
After 18 years, he was being deported to Pakistan, leaving behind his wife and three children. From behind the meshed window of the police bus, he showed his Aadhaar card to prove his nationality.
Similarly, Indian police have deported several such people through the land route from the Attari-Wagah joint check post.
The IIOJK authorities took this step in the wake of orders issued by New Delhi instructing “all Pakistani citizens” to leave India before May 1 in the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack.
Ferried in police buses, the deportees were brought from Handwara, Kupwara, Baramulla, Budgam and other districts of the occupied territory.
As soon as the police opened the doors of the bus outside the gates of the Attari-Wagah border, Rajouri’s Sarah Khan rushed out and raised her voice for media persons to hear. Carrying her new-born, Sarah, a Pakistan national, said she was woken up at midnight and brought to the order for repatriation. She said she gave birth to a son 14 days ago through a caesarean operation and doctors had advised her against travel. But she was brought hundreds of kms away from her “hometown”.
Already the mother of six-year-old boy Umar Hayat Khan, who is also a Pakistan national, Sarah had been issued a two-year-long term visa (LTV) which expires in July 2026. Her husband Aurangzeb Khan said he married Sarah, his cousin, in 2017. She was born and brought up in Mirpur, which falls in Azad Kashmir as her parents had migrated to the place from India in 1965.
Radha, who claims to be an Indian national, said she was picked up from her residence in Kathua district at midnight. Claiming to possess all documents to show her citizenship, she said that despite those she was being sent to Pakistan.
Radha, who is in her early 60s, added that she does not have any relative in Pakistan and all her sons and daughters reside in Jammu region. She stated that she was born in Pakistan where her parents used to stay. They crossed over to India long after Partition. Accompanying them, she also arrived here. She no longer remembers where her parents used to stay in Pakistan.
