Repatriate Pak woman deported after April 22 terror attack, HC tells Centre

The High Court of J&K and Ladakh has ordered the Union Government to repatriate a 63-year-old Pakistani woman who is married in Jammu but was deported by the authorities following the Pahalgam attack on April 22.

Judge Rahul Bharti on June 6 had ordered the Secretary of Ministry of Home Affairs to bring back petitioner Rakshanda Rashid to India.

While the court had asked for the compliance to be carried out within 10 days, the family is still waiting for Rakshanda at Jammu. The court has also directed the authorities to file the compliance report by July 1.

“Given the exceptional nature of facts and circumstances of the case whereby the petitioner Rakshanda Rashid, wife of Sheikh Zahoor Ahmed, has been purportedly deported to Pakistan in the recent drive undertaken by the Government of India post Pahalgam carnage, this court is constrained to direct the Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, to retrieve the petitioner back to J&K so as to facilitate the reunion of the petitioner with her husband Sheikh Zahoor Ahmed in Jammu,” the order stated.

Rakshanda was staying with her husband in Jammu for the past 38 years and was evicted from here after the Union Government decided to deport Pakistanis following the Pahalgam attack. She was reportedly having a long-term visa (LTV). When contacted, her daughter Falak Zahoor refused to comment on the matter.

Rakshanda is reportedly staying at a hotel in Lahore as she doesn’t have any close relative in the country.

Her husband Sheikh Zahoor Ahmed informed the court that Rakshanda has no one in Pakistan for her care, particularly when she is suffering from multiple ailments.

“This court is bearing in mind…that the petitioner was having LTV status at a relevant point of time which per-se may not have warranted her deportation but without examining her case in better perspective and coming up with a proper order with respect to her deportation from the authorities concerned, still she came to be forced out,” the order stated.

It further read, “Human rights are the most sacrosanct component of a human life and, therefore, there are occasions when a constitutional court is supposed to come up with SOS-like indulgence notwithstanding the merits and demerits of a case which can be adjudicated only upon in due course of time and therefore, this court is coming up with a direction to the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, to bring back the petitioner from her deportation”.