A 56-year-old woman from Pakistan, who has been living in Odisha’s Balangir district for 35 years after marrying an Indian, is living under the fear of getting separated from her family following the Centre’s directive to all Pakistanis to leave the country in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack.

After the Union home ministry’s directive, the Odisha government has initiated steps to deport nearly 12 Pakistani nationals residing in the state.

Sharada said she was born in a Hindu family in Sukkur city of Pakistan’s Sindh province.

“My family came to India more than three decades ago. My parents and I came to Koraput district, where I married Mahesh Kukreja. My husband is a bangle trader. Now we are settled in Balangir,” she told reporters.

She has two children — a son and a daughter — and both are married.

She recalled how they had migrated to India on a 60-day visa in 1987. She was 18 years old at that time.

Sharada’s family showed reporters a notice issued to her by Balangir police asking her to leave the country.

“All existing visas except medical visa, long-term visa and diplomatic visa and official visa issued by the government of India to Pakistan nationals stand revoked with immediate effect from April 27. As per our available record, you neither have a valid long-term visa nor coming under the exempted category of visa. Hence, you are directed to quit India at the earliest as deemed proper, failing which legal action will be taken against you,” the notice said.

Pleading with the reporters to put pressure on the government not to send her back to Pakistan, Sharada said: “I don’t know where we used to stay in Pakistan. My son and daughter are married and settled. How can I leave my family? I am an Indian. I have lived here as an Indian. We don’t have any connection there. There is only a faint memory associated with Pakistan. Please ask the government not to separate me from
my family. I appeal to the Modi government not to send me back.”

Sharada’s son said they apply for citizenship every year, but “due to some strange reason, it keeps getting rejected”.

Another Muslim woman married to a man in Bhubaneswar is also spending sleepless nights after receiving a notice from the police to quit India.