Wives of former militants who married Kashmiri men and had travelled from Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK) to Jammu and Kashmir after the 2010 announcement of amnesty policy for former militants have been protesting for their identities at Srinagar’s Press Enclave.
Hundreds of women had come here with their Kashmiri husbands in 2010 after then-Chief Minister Omar Abdullah announced a policy for the return and rehabilitation of former militants living in POK. The women have been protesting from time-to-time demanding citizenship. They don’t have any identity of their own here owing to lack of citizenship.
In the first two decades of militancy, hundreds of Kashmiri men who had gone to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir for weapon training or to escape the Indian security forces had returned with their wives. Many of them returned after the Omar Abdullah’s government introduced a “rehabilitation scheme” in 2010 for those who had crossed over to the other side of the Line of Control between 1989 and 2009.
The policy outlined four points of return: the joint check post at Wagah-Attari, the Salamabad and Chakan da Bagh crossings along the Line of Control, Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport. Misbah, a female protester, said: “We have protested on many occasions for our demands and today we have gathered again to protest.” She added:
“When the government didn’t responded to us in these years, we went towards border by ourselves. At Baramulla, on the way to Uri, police lathi-charged us and our children. We were in the police station for the whole day till 8 pm. Instead of all this, we are still peacefully asking for our rights and just want a response from government.”
The female protesters holding banners in their hands say that there are about 370 families of former militants in Srinagar with a population of more than 3,000, who are facing various difficulties in terms of basic necessities. They said:
“We have also met with the lieutenant governor to resolve our issues but so far, no action has been taken. We have got imprisoned in our own houses, we haven’t met our families in Pakistan from a long time and the education and future of our children is in danger.”
The women also said that if the government’s policy of bringing them here failed, they should be sent back because it is a question of their lives.