NHRC notice to Centre over citizenship delay

JALANDHAR: Taking cognizance of a complaint on behalf of Pakistani Hindus, who migrated to India and are awaiting citizenship for the past several years, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued notices to ministries of external and home affairs, seeking their reports within four weeks.
The complaint was filed by All India Hindu Shiv Sena president Surinder Kumar Billa in March last, highlighting the plight of these poor Hindus, who migrated from Pakistan, to escape persecution.But many of them have been waiting for citizenship for the last two decades, it said.
In his complaint, Billa had mentioned that some migrants had died while waiting for citizenship as it was taking too long to decide their cases. Most Hindus, who migrated from Sialkot happen to be poor and had taken up small time jobs here for a living. For want of citizenship, they were unable to avail other facilities like ration supply, subsidized education for children, etc., as most of them were from scheduled caste communities, the complaint said.
The complaint was placed before the commission on May 7, which issued notices to the two ministries on May 9.
Recently, in a reply to Parliament, the home ministry had revealed that Government of India has granted citizenship to 1,210 foreign nationals in the last three years (2009 to 12). However, it did not specify how many Hindus had migrated to India and got citizenship in the last three years.
Meanwhile, Surinder Billa, who has been pursuing their cases, said that as the cut off date for such migrants have already been fixed as December 31, 2004, formalities should be completed fast, without any delay or dilly-dallying by the authorities.