BJP demands citizenship for people displaced from Pak

Condemning the alleged atrocities and forcible conversion of Hindus in Pakistan, the Madhya Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party executive committee on Wednesday adopted a resolution demanding not to send back displaced persons to the neighbouring country and allowing them to stay in India.

The resolution, moved by BJP's Indore district unit president Shankar Lalwani after the two-day meeting of the committee ended here today, demanded granting citizenship to the displaced persons by amending rules and also that they should not be forced to go back to Pakistan where they were facing problems.

It said the attitude of Pakistan towards the minority community was not secular and incidents of kidnapping, loot, rape and forcible religious conversion were a routine feature.

In view of the above conditions, the committee adopted a resolution that the rules for granting citizenship to such persons who stayed back in Pakistan after partition should be relaxed and they should not be sent back to there, against their wishes.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has assured that nobody would be sent back to Pakistan from Madhya Pradesh and he will take up the issue with the Centre, Lalwani said.

Instead of a seven-year rule for availing citizenship, such persons, especially from Pakistan, should be granted it after six-months of stay in the country, as was the case prior to 1965.

Over 10,000 such persons in Madhya Pradesh and about 35,000 in India were staying even after expiry of their visa and since they do not want to back to Pakistan, they should not be forced to go back, he stressed.