Deported Pak man’s wife seeks Sushma Swaraj’s help to bring him back

Mateen Hafeez | TNN | Updated: Mar 15, 2018, 04:48 IST


MUMBAI: “I request Union minister Sushma Swaraj to help bring my husband back from Pakistan,” said a teary-eyed Sajida, wife of Pakistani national Siraj Khan who was deported to his home country from Mumbai on Monday following court orders.
Sajida (39) and Siraj (37) married in Mumbai in 2005 and have three children. “My children are like orphans without their father. I am a poor woman and don’t know much about procedures. I just want my husband back,” said Sajida and broke down while talking to mediapersons at her modest one-room Antop Hill home on Wednesday.

Siraj was deported through the Attari border checkpoint in Punjab after a court ruled that he was illegally living in India.

Sajida took up bracelet making to earn Rs 100 a day ever since her husband was put under preventive detention in December 2017. Khan used to work as a waiter with a catering service and make Rs 10,000 a month.

The couple’s three children—Zara (12) and twins Inayat and Ejaz (7)—study in a Marathi medium school at Sion.

“My children walk 3km to reach their school. I have no money,” said Sajida and added that police did not inform her of her husband’s deportation. “It was my husband who called me to say cops were taking him to New Delhi. We rushed to the railway station to meet him. The next day, he called me and said he was being taken to Amritsar for deportation to Pakistan,” she said, adding that Siraj had lived in India for 27 years.  

When he was 10, Siraj fled his Pakistan home after his father scolded him for failing an exam, said Sajida. He wanted to visit his uncle’s home in Karachi but took a wrong train and reached Amritsar. “A family took him to New Delhi. After three days, he took a train and reached Gujarat where he was detained as a ‘runaway child’ and sent to a children’s shelter. He spent several years there till a wall of the shelter collapsed and he was among 40 teenagers to flee. He then came to Mumbai,” said Sajida.

It was Sajida’s sister in-law who finalized her wedding with him. Sajida is youngest among four brothers and three sisters.

 “Sometime before Eid in 2014, someone suggested that he visit the CID for help in getting a passport to go to Pakistan. He wanted to take all of us to his hometown for Eid to meet his family. However, cops told the media that they had ‘raided’ our house,” said Sajida. Siraj was booked for staying illegally in the country. “I request the government to give him an Indian nationality or send me and my kids to Pakistan,” said Sajida and added that social worker Raj Awasthi, who is helping her, has written to the Prime Minister and the National Human Rights Commission for help, but there has been no response so far. “If Adnan Sami (singer) can be given Indian citizenship, then why not my husband? Is it because we are poor?”

The family said they had filed an application for Siraj’s Indian citizenship and it was pending. Siraj called Sajida after reaching Lahore. “I spoke to my in-laws too. Khan told me he will prepare a passport and come back to meet us soon. I will fight for his nationality until we get justice.”

The Times of India, Mumbai 

For 27 years, Pakistani made India home; now deported

Mateen Hafeez | TNN | Updated: Mar 14, 2018, 03:37 IST

Highlights

• Siraj Khan lived in India for 27 years and had married Sajida, an Indian.
• After a failed battle to keep Khan here, Sajida stayed back with their 3 kids. Now, she works as a house help.
• Khan had run away from his house in Pakistan fearing his father would scold him after failing in a school exam.

MUMBAI: Siraj Khan (37), who claims to have strayed into India as a 10-year-old boy, was deported to Pakistan on Monday through the Attari border checkpoint in Punjab after a court ruled that he had been staying here illegally.
Khan lived in India for 27 years and had settled in Antop Hill after marrying Sajida, an Indian. They have three children. After a failed battle to keep Khan here, Sajida has stayed back with the kids and works as a house help.

“A team of seven from RA Kidwai Marg police station took him to New Delhi and from there to Amritsar to deport him through the Attari border,” said a senior police officer.

Khan had told the police that he had run away from his home in Pakistan fearing his father would scold him after failing in an exam. He wanted to go to his uncle’s home in Karachi, but took the wrong train and reached Amritsar.

After some time there, he reached Gujarat, where he found shelter in a children’s remand home. When he turned 18 and was released, he came to Mumbai and started staying in the Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Marg area in central Mumbai. There he got married to Sajida in 2005, and started working as a waiter. They had three children over time, and made a home in Antop Hill.

Khan was booked for staying illegally for the first time in 2009. In 2013, the police said when a CID team had raided Khan’s home in 2009, he had said he was originally from Post Sarkul, Tal Chetpen, District Mansehra in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). But he could not produce any document to prove it. 

On January 4, 2014, he was convicted under the Foreigners Act, 1946, and Passport (Entry into India) Rules and sentenced to seven months in jail. The court later ordered that he be deported and asked the police to keep him under preventive detention. His family had said they had filed an application for Khan’s Indian citizenship and it was pending.  

On October 7, 2014, Khan allegedly fled from the police station premises, and a fresh case was registered against him under the Foreigner’s Act. If convicted, he could have got up to five years’ imprisonment. “The state government later withdrew this case since it wanted to deport him as per court order,” said an officer.

Meanwhile, Sajida and her lawyer filed an application before the court, challenging the restriction over Khan’s movement, but could not undo the deportation order. The case had dragged over years since Khan had been booked in another one.

In December 2017, the Foreigner’s Regional Registration Officer (FRRO) passed an order restricting Khan’s movements within the police station premises. Finally, he was deported on Monday.

The Times of India, March 14, 2018