A rights activist has filed a petition before the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) seeking rehabilitation of Pakistani women married to Kashmiri militants in Jammu and Kashmir.
The petitioner prays that the government of India should either rehabilitate these women in Kashmir or facilitate their return to Pakistan as per their wishes.
The government of India (MHA) should take up this issue with the High Commission/foreign office of Pakistan and facilitate their rehabilitation or return to Pakistan as per their wishes, Mujtaba Hussain, the petitioner has pleaded in the petition.
Pertinently, on the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Kashmir on Sunday, scores of Pakistani women married to former Kashmiri militants staged a protest in Srinagar.
The women demanded citizen rights and travel documents so that they “are able to travel to Pakistan hassle-free whenever they want and also live with dignity in Kashmir.”
The women had also appealed PM Modi and his Pakistan counterpart Imran Khan to intervene in the matter on humanitarian grounds.
Scores of former Kashmiri militants had returned to Kashmir along with their Pakistani spouses and their children under a rehabilitation policy announced by then Omar Abdullah led government for surrendered militants in 2010.
The idea to devise such rehabilitation policy had struck the government in 2010 after a former militant along with his wife from Poonch had approached it seeking rehabilitation. Subsequently, the rehabilitation policy for former militants was formulated.