J&K High Court asks Centre to repatriate woman deported to Pakistan post-Pahalgam terror attack

The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh has ordered the Union Home Secretary to repatriate a 63-year-old housewife to India who was deported to Pakistan following the crackdown against Pakistani nationals in the wake of the Pahalgam terror attack.

Judge Rahul Bharti, in a June 6 order, said, “Human rights are the most sacrosanct component of a human life and, therefore, there are occasions when a constitutional court is supposed to come up with SOS-like indulgence, notwithstanding the merits and demerits of a case, which can be adjudicated only upon in due course of time. Therefore, this court is coming up with a direction to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Government of India (GOI), to bring back the petitioner from her deportation.”

Petitioner Rakshanda Rashid from Pakistan had been staying in Jammu for the past 38 years with her husband and two children. 

Her daughter Falak Sheikh told The Hindu that for the past two months, her mother had been living alone in a hotel in Lahore. She had no immediate relatives there and might soon run out of money that she took from India.

“She was here on a long-term visa (LTV), yet she was deported to Pakistan. She applied for citizenship in 1996 but the application is yet to be processed. All her sisters are settled in other countries; she has no immediate relatives there,” said Ms. Sheikh, a language proficiency trainer in Jammu.

The daughter added that the family was worried about her mother’s safety as soon her phone would also stop working.

“She took only ₹50,000 with her due to the cap on the currency one can carry across the border, and soon she will run out of money. First, she stayed in a paying guest accommodation and then moved to a hotel in Lahore. Her phone will stop working; she cannot purchase a local SIM card as foreign handsets do not work in Pakistan. To keep international roaming, she needs to pay ₹30,000-40,0000, which she does not have,” the daughter added. Married to a retired government official, Ms. Rashid was picked up by the Jammu and Kashmir police and taken to the Attari border check point in Punjab, from where she was sent to Pakistan on April 30.

‘Multiple ailments’

According to the Court order, Sheikh Zahoor Ahmed, the husband of the petitioner, said his wife “has no one in Pakistan for her care and custody, particularly when she is suffering from multiple ailments and her health and life are at risk with each passing day and she is left to fend for herself as abandoned.”

The Judge said, “This court is bearing in mind that the petitioner was having the LTV status at relevant point of time which per se may not have warranted her deportation, but without examining her case in better perspective and coming up with a proper order with respect to her deportation from the authorities concerned, still she came to be forced out.”

The court ordered that “given the exceptional nature of facts and circumstances of the case” that the petitioner has been purportedly deported to Pakistan in the recent drive undertaken by the GOI post-Pahalgam carnage, this court is constrained to direct the Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, GOI, to retrieve the petitioner back to Jammu and Kashmir, India so as to facilitate the reunion of the petitioner with her husband in Jammu.”

It said needful compliance be carried out within a period of 10 days from the date of passing of this order.

Petitioner’s counsel Ankur Sharma said Jammu and Kashmir authorities were yet to act upon the order and the woman had not returned to India.

“Her LTV was automatically extended every year as she is married to an Indian. She was deported even though the government had said that those who possessed LTVs will be exempt from the visa-revocation order and will not have to leave the country,” Mr. Sharma said. 

After the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, the government cancelled visas of all Pakistani citizens and asked them to leave India by April 29.

After the deadline was over, police across the country physically removed Pakistani citizens deporting them from the Attari border point in Punjab.