‘Never knew we are landing in ‘hell’, PM Modi must allow us to go back to PaK’ | KNO

Kashmir News Observer (KNO)

Srinagar, March 29 (KNO) : After moving from pillar to post ever since they landed in Kashmir with their husbands and children, the Pakistan administered Kashmir (PaK) based brides Friday staged an “emotional protest” in Srinagar’s press enclave to demand return to their roots citing a volley of reasons. These ill-fated women while terming the rehabilitation policy under which they returned as a “mere eye-wash” stating the first their husbands were denied jobs, then their children admissions in schools and now they have been divorced by their husband leaving them with the no option other than to seek safe passage to Muzarabad, Mirpur and other areas of Pakistan administered Kashmir. “We never knew we are landing in hell. We request Prime Minister Narendera Modi to allow travel documents to us so that we can at least join our families again,” a woman protestor told KNO, who originally hails from Mirpur. She returned along with her husband Mushtaq Ahmed and three children via Nepal under the rehabilitation policy announced by the then Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, under which at least 450 families returned only to land in “one after another trouble.” The disgruntled women appealed to the Indian and Pakistani Prime Ministers to intervene in the matter and allow them to travel to Pakistan. “We have been left at the mercy of God as they were denied rights granted to every citizen,” said another protesting woman, identifying herself as Toiba. “We have been holding protests since 2012 but nobody is bothered about our demands. We urge the government to issue us permanent resident certificate and travel documents,” she told KNO. “We have suffered a lot already during past many years.” A group of protesting woman said that now they have no-where to go, the main demand is that Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan should on humanitarian grounds issue them the travel permit so that they can cross over to other side and live with their families again. “Here our husbands are labelled as militants, our children as Pakistanis and we as Pakistani supporters. How can we live under such a duress and distress,” they alleged.(KNO)