Days after it got here to mild that just about 800 Pakistani Hindus in Rajasthan returned to that nation final 12 months, Congress chief in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Wednesday wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah and sought quick steps by the federal government to make sure that “our Hindu brethren” don’t face “harassment” and should not have to return to Pakistan “out of frustration”.
These individuals had come to India looking for citizenship on the premise of non secular persecution in Pakistan.
Drawing Shah’s consideration to “the serious plight of Pakistani Hindu returnee to India”, Chowdhury wrote that “a large number of Pakistani Hindus who had come to India…to escape religious persecution had to return because they were unable to secure Indian citizenship”.
“The Ministry of Home Affairs in 2018 and once more in 2021 had introduced that Hindus, Chiristians, Sikhs, Parsis, Jains and Budhists from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh can apply for Indian citizenship on-line. Thousands and hundreds of Hindus from Pakistan got here to India and utilized for Indian citizenship. However, due to the gradual and cumbersome course of there’s little progress and so they have develop into so pissed off that they’re going again to Pakistan,” he wrote.
In a second letter, Chowdhury requested Shah to withdraw the Citizenship Amendment Act.
“It is more than two years now that you have passed the ill thought-out legislation called CAA,” he wrote. “But nonetheless, you aren’t in a position to implement it due to its inherent and manifest unconstitutionality. That is why Pakistani Hindu returnees are going again to Pakistan out of sheer frustration and hopelessness. This draconian laws can’t be applied as a result of it’s a laws focusing on a selected neighborhood. It is towards the essential tenets and fundamentals of our constitutional ethos.”
The Congress chief talked about that the underlying worth of the Indian Constitution is “to live and let live”. “And therefore, I am sure this targeted legislation against a particular community will not stand judicial scrutiny,” he acknowledged. “Perhaps you know it well and that’s why despite the passage of the Act of more than two years, you have not been able to frame even the rudimentary rules of CAA.”
Emphasizing that the “world is watching us and they have tagged us as a country of particular concern in respect of religious freedom,” Chowdhury wrote, “it is important that we preserve the fundamentals of our governance, ie, secularism and social justice. Otherwise, our great civilization embedded with secular and tolerant values will be tarnished beyond repair…. I appeal to you to withdraw the CAA legislation in the impending monsoon session of Parliament, like the three controversial farm laws.”
Chowdhury, in his first letter, acknowledged that the Pakistan authorities is forcing lots of these returned to say that they have been ill-treated in India. “The worst half is that after they (Pakistani Hindus) returned, they have been utilized by Pakistani businesses to defame India. They are paraded earlier than the media and made to say that they’re ill-treated in India,” he wrote.
Pointing out flaws within the system, he acknowledged, “Though all the course of is on-line, the portal doesn’t settle for Pakistani passports which have expired, forcing individuals looking for refuge to hurry to the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi to get their passports renewed for a hefty sum.”
Chowdhury wrote: “These people come to India amid great financial hardships and to cough up an exorbitant sum for renewal of their Pakistani passport is really hard on them. The condition of these Pakistani Hindu returnees in India is miserable, terrible and pathetic. They are neither here nor there. I appeal to you to take immediate and appropriate steps so that our Hindu brethren do not face harassment and they do not have to go back to Pakistan out of frustration.”
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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
