W Pak refugees: 60 years on, still stateless

Jammu: Even as India celebrated its 60th year of independence from British rule, nearly 1.5

lakh people settled along Indo-Pak border line in Jammu district are still awaiting citizenship and continue to be called `Pakistani guests`. Struggling for their basic rights as a `citizen` even today, they are West-Pakistan refugees, who escaped the holocaust of 1947 to settle in border belts of Jammu.

While those from West Pakistan including former Prime Minister I K Gujral rose to positions of power, in other states of country, similar people are yet to get citizenship of J&K even after 60 years of their settlement here.

"We are unwanted and wronged people, who continue to struggle for basic needs and right to live in India," chairman of West Pakistan Refugee Action Committee (WPRAC), Laba Ram Gandhi told here.

"If Gujral, who like them migrated from West Pakistan to settle in Delhi could become the PM of the country, at least they (West Pakistani refugees in J&K) have the right to live, to seek education, employment, own land and right to exercise franchise," said Bachan Lal Kalgotra, a lawyer in their case for several years.

Article 370 of the constitution of Jammu & Kashmir, which provides special status to the state, prevents these refugees from getting citizenship rights--right to own land, education, employment and vote in J&K, Kalgotra said. However, refugees from Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) were granted all citizenship rights and state subject rights, he claimed.

According to official statistics, as many as 1,14,987 West Pakistan refugees are living in 137 hamlets most along the Indo-Pak border in R S Pura and Suchetgarh and Bishnah constituencies of Jammu district.

Many of the refugees have been complaining of living in sub-human conditions in mud house without water and power supplies. "We have no option but to drink unhygienic water from pools," said Karma Devi, one of the elderly women of Rangpur Sidhriya refugee village in R S Pura border town.

The youth, mostly illiterate, earn their livelihood by working as labourers in agriculture fields in border belts of R S Pura, Samba, Hiranagar and Jammu, while elderly people work as domestic helpers and children beg. Bureau Report