Srinagar: Demanding travel documents to visit their families, scores of Pakistani women Monday staged a protest at a press enclave in the city.
Holding placards and raising slogans “we want justice, we want travel documents” the protesters said they have been protesting and demanding the issuance of travel documents for a long now, “but to no avail”.
“We want the Government of India to confirm our identity. If we are Indians then give us a passport to travel, and if we are not Indians then send us back from where we have come,” they said.
“We are living a prisoner’s life here. Today we are facing the nationality issues, tomorrow it could be our children, their future is at stake,” Saira, a protester told news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO).
The protesting women said counting of DDC candidate Somia Sadaf was stopped by government, but there are other women who are currently appointed as Panch and Sarpanch and are delivering their duties.
“Government has adopted a dual approach towards us, by not issuing us the travel documents,” they said.
Pakistani women married to former Kashmiri militants, who had returned to the Valley under government’s rehabilitation, have held similar protests and press briefings in the past demanding full citizenship rights and issuance of travel documents.
In 2010 then state Government led by Omar Abdullah in consultation with central government had proposed a rehabilitation policy for the men who had crossed to another side of the border for arms training.