The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
‘Day one of new life’: Family celebrates as 5 members get papers
CELEBRATIONS ERUPTED at the house of Madho Bhai Thakur at Delhi’s Adarsh Nagar camp on Wednesday as his daughter, two of his sons, and their wives received the Indian citizenship certificates. The family came to India from Pakistan in 2014 on a pilgrimage and decided to stay back.
Family members and friends of Madho, who ran a homoeopathy clinic in Pakistan for 18 years, showered him with flower petals, women raised ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ slogans, and men danced, praising PM Modi, UP CM Yogi Adityanath and Home Minister Amit Shah.
“It’s the day one of our new life,” says Madho’s daughter Bhawana, 18, who studies in Class 11 at a government school and is looking forward to visiting her relatives in Gujarat.
“So far, we were not citizens and feared things going wrong if we ventured out without permission. Now, we are free,” Bhawana adds.
Her brother Harji, too, wants to go to Gujarat where his relatives live, and plans to start a business. He says that with Indian citizenship, they will be able plan their future better.
The family came to India in 2014 from Pakistan’s Hyderabad city for a pilgrimage and decided to stay back. They knew some people at the Delhi’s Adarsh Nagar camp who had come from Sindh and were living there. They made a makeshift shelter, which over the years was upgraded to a brick-and-mortar house.
“We had a huge house back in Pakistan…now we can live peacefully here without being called Pakistani by people,” says Bhawana. After getting the certificate she called her uncle and aunt back in Pakistan and broke the good news. “They are very happy… they too want to come to India… they have not been able to get a visa,” she adds.
Madho’s brother and their families also came to India, but only after 2014 because of which they couldn’t apply for Indian citizenship.
Meanwhile, Madho and his wife were able to get the certificate on Wednesday as documentation was not complete. “They want some more documents and need the proof of our parents’ death or birth certificate, which we are arranging,” he says.