526 Pakistanis await Indian citizenship

They top the list of 1,084 applicants

Some of the Pakistani Sindhis who were granted Indian citizenship in January .

Nearly half the applications pending for Indian citizenship are from Pakistanis, according to a Home Ministry database. Out of the 1,084 applicants who applied for Indian citizenship before 2011, as many as 526 are from Pakistan.

There were 103 applications pending from Afghanistan, followed by 72 from Iran and 41 from Bangladesh. As many as 30 applicants are Malaysian, 24 British, seven Tibetans, 13 Sri Lankans and eight Chinese.

The power to grant citizenship lies with the Home Ministry.

The decision is taken after examining verifications reports from the State governments and the Intelligence Bureau. Indian citizenship is acquired by birth, descent, registration and naturalisation.

In 2016, the Home Ministry delegated powers to 16 District Collectors in seven States to grant citizenship to non-Muslims from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh living in India, and issued a notification last week to make the entire process online.

Bill under study

A parliamentary committee is already examining the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 that proposes citizenship to members of six persecuted minorities — Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Parsis, Christians and Buddhists — from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, who came to India before 2014.

Under the Citizenship Act, 1955, one of the grounds to acquire citizenship by naturalisation is that the applicant must have resided in India during the past 12 months and for 11 out of 14 years in India.

The Bill proposes to relax the duration from 11 to six years for persons belonging to the six persecuted religions.

In 2015, Pakistani singer Adnan Sami was granted Indian citizenship by naturalisation.

Long-term visas

Since 2011, nearly 30,000 Pakistanis have been granted long-term visas, a precursor for citizenship, and currently 1,500 such applications are pending.

Recently, the Home Ministry shot off a letter to all States asking them to furnish the pending reports of all applicants by October 31.

The Ministry had first asked the States and applicants to produce the deficient documents in August. It received representations to extend the cut-off date.

An official said some applications were pending from 2001.

The Ministry has also informed the States that Pakistanis married to Indians, who had applied for citizenship under Section 5 (1) (C) of the Citizenship Act will only be considered on production of marriage certificates issued by the Registrar of Marriage. It informed the States that marriage certificate issued in Pakistan were not valid.