6000 Pak migrants living in Rajasthan to get Indian Citizenship

Jaipur: With the Rajya Sabha passing the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill or CAB, nearly 6,000 non-Muslims living in Rajasthan for more than six years are expecting to get Indian citizenship soon. There are 18,000 registered Pak-migrants in Rajasthan. Of them, only 6,000 have been living in the country for more than six years. The bill specifies six years of residency as the criteria for granting non-Muslims of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

“Non-Muslims living in Rajasthan currently have to register themselves with the Foreign Registration Office (FRO) just like any other international visitors. They can apply for Long Term Visa,” a senior police officer said. FROs are located in all police range headquarters. There is an additional FRO in Ganganagar.

“As many as 18164 Hindus who migrated to India from Pakistan were living in Rajasthan, particularly western parts of the state including Jodhpur and Jaisalmer until September 30,2019 as per FRO records. The maximum number of Pak migrants – 14,157 to be precise – are living in Jodhpur and rest in Jaisalmer and Jaipur. The state government had organized camps to give these migrants to register themselves earlier this month,” said the officer.

He added that nearly 6,000 of these migrants will be eligible for Indian citizenship.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill proposes to grant citizenship to the non-Muslims Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhist, Jains and Parsis — from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh who arrived in India before December 31, 2014.