Pakistani Hindu Migrants Sans Basic Facilities Even in India Today !

By Gopinath Kumar (Executive Editor)
Sunday, June 20, 2010

(PHOTO : Group of Pakistan Hindus in India now, Say - never want to return back to there Motherland called Pakistan)

Amritsar : More than 10,000 Pakistani Hindus who, were allegedly forced to migrate to India for factors ranging from alleged forced conversion efforts to lack of employment opportunities for minority communities in that country, were staying afloat in India sans any basic facilities like education or job avenues for want of citizenship rights.

The plight of Pakistani Hindus had allegedly turned from bad to worse in the aftermath of the rise of Taliban forces in Pakistan, particularly, in Peshawar of the NWFP and in Sialkot of Punjab (Pakistan) during the past 10 years.

The migration of Pakistani Hindus to India has been going on from 1980 onwards, but what had reportedly triggered their influx to India in the past decade was an array of alleged conversion efforts, a number of which even turned out to be successful in Peshawar and Sialkot areas where a couple of Hindu families had reportedly embraced Islam to save their jobs or land-holdings.

Those who were unable to bow to the fundamentalists pressure chose to flee to India after attaining short-term visas on the pretext that they were going to meet their relatives in India.

“Over 300 Hindus have come to India through Samjhauta Express from Sialkot during the past six months. We have got information that nearly 35 Hindu families of the area had got converted to Islam between May 14 and 19.

Though they had anticipated some relief in India, more than 10,000 migrants were putting up in India without valid documents and were yet to get citizenship rights,” said All India Hindu Shiv Sena national president Surinder Kumar Billa.

Pakistani Hindus have been putting up in various Indian cities and townships like Rajpura (700 families), Jalandhar (200 families), Khanna (700 families), Amritsar, Jalgaon in Maharashtra, Raj Nandgaon in Chhattisgarh, New Delhi, and in Madhya Pardesh. Most of these migrants were forced to do menial jobs.

“Since, these families not having any residential proofs, their kids are unable to get admission to schools. There is no Government of India grant for them despite the fact that it was fully aware about their plight.

The Home Ministry had ratified norms in 2001 stipulating that any Pakistani Hindu could be considered for grant of Indian citizenship rights if he or she proves his or her stay in India for at least five years. But, how can these people do it so easily? They have been giving representations and application forms to DCs, but without any tangible results, rued Billa. Priyan Bharti, DC, Jalandhar, had forwarded one such representation to the Punjab Home Secretary, he added.