The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has put on hold a notice served by the intelligence wing of the Rajasthan police and the Foreigners' Registration Office on six Pakistani Hindus staying at Nachna village, near Pokhran in Jaisalmer district, asking them to leave the country for violating the visa rules.
The notice was based on a letter sent by the MHA to the Rajasthan government on October 14. The letter said the family was staying in a “restricted area without obtaining permission from authorities” and were also involved in “suspicious activities”.
The family, comprising 19 members, fled Pakistan in 2013 fearing religious persecution and settled in Jodhpur. While their visa for stay in India was being regularly extended, six members of the family moved to Nachna, which falls in an area west of the national highway, restricted to foreign nationals.
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The notice was issued on Tuesday to Nawab Chand, Gul Chand, Kishore Das, Jairam Das, Kanwar Ram and Kajal. Signed by the Superintendent of Police (Intelligence), Jodhpur, it asked them to leave India immediately, failing which the action for deporting them would be initiated.
The MHA letter said the family, invited by Nawab Chand, was suspected to be in “receipt of hawala money”.
The family has approached the police and administration, as well as Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, elected to the Lok Sabha from Jodhpur, with a plea to let them stay in Rajasthan. The women of the family have warned that they would “commit suicide” if the male members were forced to go back to Pakistan.
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Hindu Singh Sodha, president of Seemant Lok Sangathan that works for Pakistani migrants in the State, said on Friday that the six had shifted to Nachna in search of livelihood as agricultural labourers in the fields near the Indira Gandhi Canal. “They have not committed any crime. The police are free to proceed against them as per the law if they are involved in criminal activities.”
A senior Home Ministry official said the notice had been stayed and was under further consideration of the government. The State government had been asked to defer any deportation/leave India notice till further orders from the Central government.
Mr. Sodha said the Rajasthan High Court had recently directed the police not to issue deportation notice to any Pakistani migrant without its permission during the pendency of a public interest litigation. If the family's male members were forcibly sent back, the women and children would find it difficult to survive, he added.