Pakistani Hindus in India still awaiting citizenship

August 19, 2012
PH

Jalandhar, August 19: With Hindus who migrated from Pakistan more than a decade ago struggling to get Indian citizenship, they are unable to help Hindus in Pakistan, who want to come to India, due to discriminatory treatment.

"I am getting calls and message from my relatives asking for help in crossing the border and coming to India. However, when we have not been granted citizenship even after 13 years, we are unable to help them," said Ashok Kumar, who migrated to India in 1999 and is settled in the city.

More than 250 families have been awaiting citizenship in Jalandhar.

"We have requested the authorities to grant us Indian citizenship after submitting complete documents, a number of times, but it seems our file is yet to move forward."

Three months ago, residents received a communication from the deputy commissioner asking for resubmission of required documents with personal verification.

"However, we are ready to extend all possible help to Hindus who manage to cross the border into India, as we can understand their plight," Kumar, a supervisor in a sports goods factory, said.

"We applied for Indian citizenship, which has been denied till now.

Ultimately, our passport expired in 2006." Kumar said, adding that the district administration had also sent some letters, some of which instructing them to go back to Pakistan.

When contacted, deputy commissioner, Priyank Bharti, told HT that few months ago, he had received a communication from state's home department, wanting him to conduct verification of migrated Hindus. Accordingly, the list of verified names was sent.

However, later the home department had raised some objections on some names.

"Personal inquiry of some of the applicants is still pending, which will be cleared soon," he said. He added that once the process was complete, the state home department would send the final list to the union home ministry for final approval of granting citizenship.

Kaushlya Devi, 60, another migrant, said that she along with family members took shelter in India, after facing a threat to their lives in Sialkot, Pakistan.

"In Pakistan, fundamentalists were pressuring us to adopt Islam. When we opposed the diktat, we were harassed and mentally tortured," Kaushalya said.

She added that each migrated family had shelled-out Rs. 15,000 on completing the files for wanting citizenship, but nothing had been accomplished.

Hans Raj, 68, said that during his stay in Pakistan, his religion came in the way of his marriage. Finally, he decided to shift to India.


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Agencies
March 25,2020

New Delhi, Mar 25: The Indian Rail Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) on Wednesday appealed to the people not to cancel their e-tickets on their own in case of trains being cancelled by the national transporter due to nation-wide lockdown to help curb the spread of novel coronavirus pandemic.

Clearing the doubts of the railway passengers, IRCTC spokesperson Siddharth Singh said, "Doubts have been raised regarding cancellation of e-tickets subsequent to the halting of railway passenger trains.

"It may be submitted that for trains cancelled by the railways in its complete run, refund on e-tickets is full and automatic. In this case, no cancellation exercise is required to be done on the part of the user," he said.

The IRCTC official said that if user cancels his e-ticket in situations of train cancellations, there are chances he may get "less refund". "Hence passengers are advised not to cancel e-tickets on their own for those trains which have been cancelled by the railways," he said.

He also said that the refund amount will be credited to the user account used for booking e-tickets automatically and no charges will be deducted by the railways in case of train cancellation.

His remarks came as the national transporter announced the suspension of the passenger, mail and express services from March 23 till March 31. However, the railways extended the suspension of services till April 14 in the wake of the three week lockdown announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi from March 25 during his second special address to the nation on Tuesday night.

The railways has cancelled over 13,600 passengers trains across the country in a bid to combat the spread of novel coronavirus. Only freight trains are running to ensure the supply of essential services. About 9,000 freight trains are transporting essential items every day across the country.

On Wednesday, India recorded 562 cases of COVID-19 with 10 deaths.

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News Network
June 18,2020

New Delhi, Jun 18: For the 12th consecutive day, state-run oil marketing companies (OMCs) has increased the price of fuel on Thursday.

The price of petrol is increased by 53 paise a litre while that of diesel by 64 paise a litre.

Petrol and diesel will now cost Rs 77.81/litre and Rs 76.43/litre respectively in Delhi.

Notably, oil marketing companies have been adjusting retail rates in line with costs after an 82-day break from rate revision amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. These firms on June 7 restarted revising prices in line with costs.

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News Network
June 10,2020

Patna, Jun 10: A man in Bihar has willed half his property to two elephants after one of them foiled an attempt on his life by a pistol-totting criminal.

Akhtar Imam, chief manager of the Asian Elephant Rehabilitation and Wildlife Animal Trust (AERAWAT), said he has been looking after elephants since the age of 12.

"Once, there was an attempt of murder made against me. At that time the elephants saved me. When some miscreants armed with pistols tried to enter my room my elephant started trumpeting. It woke me up and I was able to shout and raise an alarm due to which the miscreants ran away," Imam said.

Imam says the two elephants, named Moti and Rani are like family for him and he cannot live without them.

However, the man claims that he fears threats to his life from his family members after he transferred his land to his two elephants. Imam's wife and sons have been living away from him for the last 10 years due to some dispute in the family.

He recounted that his son had allegedly filed a wrong case against him and also got him locked up. He eventually was let away after the charges levelled against him were proven wrong.

Imam said that his son Meraj had tried to sell the elephant to smugglers but was fortunately caught.

Imam says he has willed half of his property to his wife and his share of property worth Rs 5 crore to elephants said that if the jumbos die then the money would go to AERAWAT organisation.

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