JAMMU: The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh has granted an interim stay on an earlier order directing the repatriation of Rakshanda Rashid, a 63-year-old Pakistani national who was deported from India following the Pahalgam terror attack.
The Division Bench, headed by Chief Justice Arun Palli, on Wednesday admitted a Letters Patent Appeal (LPA) filed by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs and stayed the implementation of the June 6 order passed by Judge Rahul Bharti. The earlier ruling had found that Rashid’s deportation had been carried out without adherence to proper legal procedures.
“This court is bearing in mind… that the petitioner was having Long Term Visa 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,” Judge Bharti had observed in the now-stayed order.
Rashid, who had been living in India for years after marrying an Indian citizen, was reportedly deported in the aftermath of the June 19 terror attack in Pahalgam, despite holding valid documents, including a Long-Term Visa. The order had directed the Home Ministry to repatriate her to India, a decision now under review.
The stay has left Rashid’s family in distress. Her daughter, Falak Sheikh, said her mother has no relatives in Pakistan and is currently living alone, without any support. “We were hoping that my mother would be brought back. We had all hopes on the government, but it seems we will have to wait for it,” she told The Tribune.
Falak said her mother’s case should not be seen in the same light as other foreigners staying illegally in India. “My mother had come to India by marrying my father, an Indian citizen, years ago and had all the required documents,” she said, urging the government to consider her mother’s plight with empathy.
The court will now hear the matter in detail after the admission of the LPA, which challenges the earlier repatriation directive on legal and procedural grounds.
