NEW DELHI: Frontier Lok Sangathan (SLS) has claimed to have about 800 Pakistani Hindus living in Rajasthan returned to the neighboring countries in 2021 for the purpose of getting Indian citizenship.
SLS organization raises the voice of the rights of Pakistani minority migrants in India.
English newspaper The Hindu reported that several migrant Hindus returned to Pakistan after seeing no progress in the process of the citizenship application. According to the latest figures for 2021.
SLS president Hindu Singh Sodha reported to media "Once he returns, he is used by Pakistani agencies to defame India. He was brought before the media and forced to make a statement that He was treated badly in India."
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) started the online process of citizenship application in the year 2018. The ministry had also given the responsibility to 16 collectors in seven states to accept online applications for granting citizenship to Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis, Jains and Buddhists from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh.
In May 2021, the Ministry of Home Affairs empowered 13 other district authorities in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab to issue citizenship certificates to migrants from six communities under sections 5 and 6 of the Citizenship Act, 1955.
Hindu Singh Sodha, who lives in Jodhpur, said, "If a family has ten members, then they have to spend one lakh rupees to get the passport renewed in the Pakistani High Commission. These people come to India only after facing financial crisis and in such a situation. It is not possible for them to raise such a huge amount."
Waiting for 25 thousand Hindus to get citizenship
Singh says that there are 25,000 Pakistani Hindus in Rajasthan alone who are waiting to get citizenship. Some of these are waiting for the last two decades. Many people have applied offline.
In 2015, the Home Ministry made changes to the citizenship laws and legalized the immigration of foreign migrants who came to India because of religious persecution on or before December 2014. These people were exempted from the provisions of the Passport Act and the Foreigners Act as their passports had expired.
Senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has said that the return of Hindus from Pakistan is a matter of shame for the central government.
He tweeted, "What a shame for our BJP Union Government that Hindu victims of human rights violation by Pak Govt, about 800 of those who had escaped to India, hoping to become Indian citizens have been betrayed by non action of Modi Govt on CAA, and so have gone back heartbroken to Pakistan”.