Living In India For 35 Years, Pakistani Woman Asked To Leave: "No One There"

A Pakistan-born woman is facing deportation after having lived in India for 35 years. Sarada Bai, who has been married into a Hindu family in Odisha, was told to leave India as her visa had been cancelled amid the ongoing India-Pakistan tensions. She has allegedly been threatened with legal action if she fails to comply with police orders. The Ministry of Home Affairs ordered the deportation of all Pakistani nationals after the recent terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir. 

Who is Sarada Bai?

Sarada Bai has lived in Odisha's Bolangir for over thirty years with her Hindu husband, Mahesh Kukreja, and two children, who hold Indian nationality. She has not yet obtained Indian citizenship and has urged the government “with folded hands" to allow her to reside in India "as an Indian," according to reports.

“First, I lived in Koraput, then I moved to Bolangir. I don’t have any family in Pakistan. Even my passport is very old. I request the government and all of you with folded hands to please let me stay here. I have two grown-up children and grandchildren. I want to live here as an Indian," she told the news agency.

On April 22, the day after the terrorist attack that killed at least 26 tourists in Kashmir's Pahalgam, the Indian government announced immediate measures against Pakistan, including the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty, cancellation of visas to all Pakistani nationals, and closure of the Attari border.

Indian woman stopped at Attari border, children sent to Pakistan

In another case, an Indian woman was stopped from entering Pakistan to unite with her family in Karachi. Sana, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Meerut, was stopped because she had an Indian passport, while her children—a three-year-old son and a one-year-old daughter—were told to leave as they had Pakistani passports. "My children can't stay here, and I can't go there," Sana told reporters. "My husband had also come to the border to receive us." The 30-year-old got married to Bilal, a doctor in Karachi, in 2020. She had come to UP with her children to visit her parents.