Over 20k displaced Pak Hindus in Barmer await Citizenship Bill’s implementation

Yash Goyal
Jaipur, December 10 

Thousands of Pak Hindus living in Rajasthan’s Barmer border district are getting anxious over the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) even though it is yet to be cleared by the Rajya Sabha.

If implemented they would also get Indian citizenship as their predecessor migrants got after the 1971 Indo-Pak war.

Such self-proclaimed refugees in Barmer feel that their wait will end soon.

Facing the shelling of bombs in the 1971 war, over 60,000 people mostly Hindus had run away from their homes and hid in adjoining district of Barmer, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Pali, Jalore and Sirohi.

However, in the last fifty years most of them got Indian citizenship under the prescribed acts of the Central and state governments. 

Even in recent times, the exodus of migrants from the neighbouring country due to religious atrocities, joblessness and affinity with ancestors continued as some come with valid visa and stay longer (illegally) in Barmer’s sandy hilly areas. 

At least 20,000 Pakistani migrants are waiting for their Indian citizenship, and many of them living secretly (or hiding) in Jodhpur, Pali, Jalore, Jaislamer, and Sirohi district, claims Tarun Rai Kaga, a 1971-migrant who not only got the citizenship but also represented Chouhtan assembly constituency as MLA in former CM Vasundhara Raje’ second term, told The Tribune

Many of them are living in a ‘Relief Basti’ of Barmer which was a relief camp for migrants in previous Indo-Pak war of 1965 and 1971, but they are not entitled for any benefit under the state and Central government’s schemes for food and NREGA, the former MLA said. 

Since 1947, over one lakh displaced Pakistani migrants are living in Barmer district, many of them with Indian citizenship provided earlier.

Despite the citizenship hurdles and long procedure, not one of them wanted to return to Pakistan, he maintained. 

How many of them are Muslim displaced people waiting for their turn, when asked, Kaga said it would be difficult to figure out right away, and there would be a few such cases. 

The Lok Sabha passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill late last night that seeks to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslim refugees coming from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan after facing religious persecution back home.