Balakot delays Hyderabad housewife's wait for Indian citizenship

HYDERABAD: For the past seven years, Sumayra Farooqui, a Pakistani national living in India, has been eagerly waiting to become an Indian citizen. But because of a cruel twist of fate - and the Balakot strikes - she may have to wait another seven years before she can call herself an Indian.
Sumayra (36) got married to Shaik Ajaz Mohiuddin of Hyderabad in 2011, and finished 7 years in India last year—the period needed to apply for citizenship.Just before the Balakot hit, she had gone to Pakistan with her two kids who were born here.
‘Airspace shut, I was stranded in Lahore’
Sumayra, along with her 2 children who have Indian citizenship, had gone to Pakistan just before the Balakot strikes to visit her ailing father. She was to return on a Lahore-Delhi flight on February 27, a day after the surgical strikes, but was offloaded as the airspace between the two countries had become a no-fly zone. “I was forced to overstay in Pakistan because I was offloaded. The flight would not go to Delhi because of restrictions on airspace. I wanted to be allowed to travel up to Dubai but even that was not allowed, and I was stranded in Lahore,” Sumayra told TOI.
Three days later, her Indian visa expired. Sumayra, who had gone to Pakistan on December 4, 2018 on a three-month no obligation to return to India visa, made a fresh application and returned to Hyderabad on June 1. She reported, as per rules, at foreigners’ regional registration office in Shamshabad on June 2 and was informed that her file had been closed as she had overstayed in Pakistan. She would have to apply afresh to become an Indian citizen. “It was not my fault. Technically, I was on the flight back to India on February 27 and I was offloaded by the authorities there,” Sumayra insists.
She has now written to the Hyderabad joint commissioner of police seeking help. “My husband is an Indian national and my children are Indian nationals. I also want to be an Indian,” she said in the letter, and requested that her previous file be continued so that she could apply for Indian nationality. At the time of Partition, Sumarya’s parents had settled in Pakistan. They are related to her husband Ajaz’s parents. Because of the family relationship, Ajaz and Sumayra got married in Karachi in 2011. Sumayra moved here soon after.
“I have not received any application personally from the lady seeking Indian citizenship,” Hyderabad joint commissioner of police (special branch) Tarun Joshi told TOI. “I will look into it and forward it to the Union ministry of home affairs.”