A day ahead of the visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to J&K, scores of Pakistani spouses of former Kashmiri militants Saturday held a protest at press colony here and appealed to the PM to help them go back to Pakistan.
The aggrieved spouses of the former militants were holding banners reading “Hum Pakistani hai, hamainwapasbejh do”, “we are Pakistani, send us back”.
The wives of former militants said that they had come to Kashmir under “rehabilitation policy” announced during Omar Abdullah’s government in 2010, but they have neither been given the “the citizenship rights” nor are allowed to go back.
“We were invited here, we did not intrude. The government is not providing us travel document to go back. We are living a nomadic life here,” said Asia Hassan.
“Officially, we are not citizens here, nor can we go back home due to lack of travel documents, we feel like caged,” she said.
“Ironically there are FIRs registered against us. We are treated like criminals. Many among us have become widows during the course of time and there is none to look after them. They want to go home but they are stuck here involuntarily,” said another protestor.
The protesting women said that more than “500 Pak spouses of ex militants came to Kashmir under the government rehabilitation policy.”
“Many females among us here lost their parents and relatives who live in Pakistan but due to unavailability of travel documents they could not see their faces for the last time,” a protester said.
They appealed to the Governor J&K and the Prime Ministers of both India and Pakistan to “either rehabilitate us properly or send us back to our families.”