Amid the rising Indo-Pak tension came a contrasting news filled with positivity. The Pune district administration on Thursday granted Indian citizenship to 45 Pakistani nationals, who had migrated to India long back and were staying in the city for the past many years.
“Total 45 applicants were granted Indian citizenship on Thursday. Most of these applications were from Pakistan nationals, while one or two applications were from Afghanistan and Bangladesh nationals, who all have been given the Indian citizenship,” Pune District Collector Naval Kishore Ram said.
“After the amendment in the Citizenship Act, the district collector has been empowered to give citizenship to applicants from the minorities. As per that amendment, I have given the citizenship to these persons after I got clearances from the Intelligence Bureau (IB). I called them on a single day for signing on all affidavits and have cleared their application as these rights are now with the collector” he said.
According to the district administration, many of these applications were pending at the collector office for long years but after Ram took over as the collector, he expedited the procedure to ensure they get the citizenship.
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“There is a long process for getting the citizenship. These applications have to undergo the scrutiny of various agencies including the Intelligence Bureau. Once all these applications got the clearance from these agencies, I decided to expedite the procedure and granted them the citizenship,” Ram said.
Apart from Pakistani nationals, there were few applications from Afghanistan and Bangladeshi nationals who also got Indian citizenship.
