According to a group working for the Pakistan immigrants residing in Gujarat, there around 10000 Pak immigrant families out of which 6000 families would be eligible for an Indian citizenship under the newly implemented Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) by the Modi-led NDA government. A group of such Pak immigrants met the MoS, home Harsh Sanghvi on Thursday in Gandhinagar.
Around 10000 Pak immigrant families in Gujarat
"After the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992, the situation deteriorated for the Hindu families residing in Pakistan due to which a large number of families migrated here in Gujarat. All these Pak immigrant families are scattered across the state residing in Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Morbi, Mehsana, Radhanpur. There are around 10000 Pak immigrant families in Gujarat out of which, according to a survey of ours, 60 percent would be eligible for the citizenship according to the CAA," said Jeevan Ahir, the regional general secretary, Seema Jagran Manch and also the convenor, Visthapit Hindu Sahayata Manch.
"Going by the deadline of December 31, 2014, around 6000 families residing here in Gujarat migrated from Pakistan would be eligible for Indian citizenship. The procedure has been set in motion and the online applications have also started. Till now 3000 people have availed the citizenship of India in Gujarat. I don't think there will be any problems to avail citizenship as the Gujarat government has been proactive," added Ahir.
"We have a team of coordinators of 27 members and also we have around a dozen workers in major centres in Gujarat. They will be finishing the survey and we'll try to expedite the procedures for availing the citizenship," added Ahir.
Minister of State welcomed the group of Pak immigrants on Thursday
The Minister of State (MoS) for home, Harsh Sanghvi welcomed the group of Pak immigrants on Thursday. "I welcome all of you to Gujarat. This entire law is to include all of the people like you in Gujarat and in India. Once again I repeat that this law is not to snatch anybody's citizenship but to avail citizenship to Hindu, Sikh, Parsi, Christian and Buddhist immigrants from neighbouring countries," said Sanghvi.
I migrated to Gujarat with my parents from Karachi in 1990. The Hindus residing in Pakistan are intimidated by the majority Muslim population. The things are extremely difficult there, especially for girls and school going kids, who are harassed and intimidated by referring to them as 'Kafir'. After the 1990s, things started getting more and more difficult, due to which we decided to migrate. But here also after migrating, survival was difficult and we always felt that we were aliens," said Dimple Varindani, who runs an NGO for immigrants like her.
"I first applied for my citizenship in 2004 and my file was rejected from Delhi. Once again I applied in 2008 which also got rejected. Thereafter in 2014, I applied once again and in 2016 my file got cleared and I availed the citizenship. I thank the Modi government, which empowered the collectors to grant citizenship to persons like me," said Varindani.
