Click to play videoJalandhar (Punjab): Seventy-five-year-old Mulk Raj left Pakistan in 1995 and moved to India as he felt his family was being persecuted. He cancelled his Pakistani citizenship in 2003 and applied for Indian citizenship, but to this day he remains an illegal resident.
"We had no freedom in Pakistan. We could not go to temples or even cremate our dead properly. In India at least, all that is there. But I have no country to call my own. I am neither a Pakistani, nor an Indian. There were 10 of us who came to India on a valid visa."
Adds his wife, Kamlavanti, "There is no country for us. We don't have the money to go back to Pakistan now and then, all our relatives are here."
Thirty-five-year-old Ajit Ram faces the same problem. He left Sialkot in 1998 and moved to Punjab where he married Anju, an Indian, but the uncertainty over Ajit's citizenship status has strained their marriage.
"I regret marrying him. I have also got into trouble," says a distraught Anju.
However, Ajit has his own defence. "I have got married here. How can I go back now to get more documents? I don't have any money to go back too."
The district administration is unaware of the matter, but the police have now contacted the Indian Government to help find a solution.
Says SP Headquarters Jalandhar, Satinder Singh, "Hindu families from Pakistan have migrated here and are asking for permission to stay on. We have got in touch with the Government to find a way out."
Independence day means little to these 'no where people'. Ironically, they are dependent on both India and Pakistan to find a way out of their 'nationless' state.
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