Rakshanda Rashid. File
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has appealed against an order of the Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court to repatriate Rakshanda Rashid, a 62-year-old housewife who was deported to Pakistan after the Pahalgam terror attack despite having lived in India on a long-term visa for almost four decades.
The MHA filed a Letters Patent Appeal before a division bench of the High Court, against a June 6 order by Justice Rahul Bharti who had directed the Union Home Secretary to bring Ms. Rashid back to India within ten days.
On Tuesday, Justice Bharti sought compliance from the MHA and gave the Ministry another ten days to file its reply on the matter.
Ms. Rashid’s counsel Ankur Sharma told The Hindu that the judge insisted on compliance from the MHA, noting that there is no stay on the order yet, despite an appeal having been filed. The appeal will be heard by the Chief Justice’s Bench on Wednesday.
Long-term visa holder
After the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack which left 26 people dead, the MHA cancelled the visas of all Pakistani citizens and asked them to leave the country by April 29. The order exempted those with long-term visas as well as Pakistani women married to Indian citizens.
Ms. Rashid fell in both categories, being a Pakistani citizen married to an Indian, living in Jammu for the past 38 years on a long-term visa which was renewed annually. She had applied for Indian citizenship in 1996 but the request was yet to be processed.
‘Distorted facts’
Ms. Rashid’s daughter Fatima Sheikh said that her mother was forced out of India on April 28 by the police by “distorting facts.”
“We are sad about the Pahalgam terror attack but on what basis was my mother expelled from India? We had applied for a long-term visa extension in January, yet the ‘leave India’ notice served by police said that we applied on March 8. On April 26, I got an e-mail from the [Foreigners Regional Registration Office] FRRO that the application was being processed, yet she is deported on April 28. On May 9, I again got an e-mail that the application had gone to higher authorities for approval,” Ms. Sheikh said.
‘Rushed deportation’
On April 28, police officials showed up outside their house at 7 a.m. and took Ms. Rashid to the Attari border checkpoint in Punjab from where she was deported, her daughter said. “They did not let us even speak to our lawyers. They were in such a hurry to deport her. All her life she has lived in Jammu. How will she survive in Pakistan? It is so expensive there, she has no one there,” Ms. Sheikh said, adding that her mother has no relatives in Pakistan. For the past three months, Ms. Rashid has been living alone in a small hotel and has no money on her, she said.
As reported by The Hindu on June 23, Justice Bharti had ordered the Union Home Secretary to “retrieve” the petitioner from Pakistan “given the exceptional nature of facts and circumstances of the case”. He added: “Human rights are the most sacrosanct component of a human life and, therefore, there are occasions when a constitutional court is supposed to come up with SOS-like indulgence, notwithstanding the merits and demerits of a case.”
Published – July 01, 2025 09:35 pm IST
