NEW DELHI – The Indian government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday announced that it proposes to simplify procedures for grant of Indian citizenship to Hindus from Pakistan, the Indo-Asian News Service reported.
The proposal also envisages allowing minority communities of Pakistan staying in India on a Long Term Visa to buy property, open bank accounts and obtain permanent account number and Aadhaar number, the news service quoted an unidentified official of the Ministry of Home Affairs as saying.
According to the proposal, the collectors or district magistrates of 18 districts will be empowered for two years’ period to grant citizenship to such people at heavily reduced fees. The districts are Raipur (Chhattisgarh), Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Rajkot, Kutch and Patan (Gujarat), Bhopal and Indore (Madhya Pradesh), Nagpur, Mumbai, Pune and Thane (Maharashtra), West Delhi and South Delhi (national capital territory), Jodhpur, Jaisalmer and Jaipur (Rajasthan) and Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh).
“These are only at proposal stage,” the official said and sought public comments and suggestions on the measures proposed. The feedback may be sent to the Foreigner’s Cell at the ministry. The fees for registration as citizen of India for nationals of Pakistan be reduced from Rs 5,000 (under registration) and Rs 15,000 (under naturalisation) to a uniform fee of Rs 100 each at the time of application and at the time of grant of certificate of registration or naturalisation.
“There are reports that a ‘number’ of Bangladeshi and Pakistani nationals belonging to minority communities, such as Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Parsis and Buddhists, have been ‘compelled’ to seek ‘shelter’ in India due to ‘religious persecution’ or fear of religious persecution,” the news service quoted the official as saying.
Many of these people enter India either without any valid travel document or with one whose validity has expired. In September 2015, the Indian government decided on ‘humanitarian considerations’ to exempt Bangladeshi and Pakistani nationals, who entered India on or before December 31, 2014, to stay in the country even after expiry of their travel documents.
The exact number of minority refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan living in India is not known. Rough official estimates suggest there could be about 0.2 million such people, mostly Hindus and Sikhs. There is a ‘large’ number of Pakistani refugee settlements in Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Jaipur, Raipur, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Kutch, Bhopal, Indore, Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Delhi and Lucknow, the IANS reported.
