Pakistan woman deported after Pahalgam attack to get visitor visa: Centre
Sharing details, advocate Ankur Sharma said, 'The UT government and Government of India had challenged a previous single-judge order wherein it was directed to bring back Rakshanda from Pakistan within 10 days following her deportation. The authorities have now agreed to issue a visitor visa to her.'
Rakshanda had applied for the renewal of her long-term visa (LTV), which had expired in January. While the authorities were processing her case, the Pahalgam attack unfolded and she was told to leave for Pakistan after the Centre's decision to deport all Pakistani nationals.
A division bench, comprising chief justice Arun Palli and justice Rajnesh Oswal, on Wednesday gave its assent to the authorities concerned for allowing the visitor's visa to the elderly woman.
The court, however, said that the arrangement 'shall not constitute a precedent in any manner'.
Solicitor General of India, Tushar Mehta, who represented the home ministry, told the division bench that 'after much deliberation and considering the peculiarity of facts… an in-principle decision was taken to grant a visitor visa to the respondent.'
He assured the court that the authorities would 'process and accord a visitor visa to her at the earliest'.
The division bench observed that thereafter, the woman may pursue her two applications pending with the authorities on acquiring Indian citizenship and the long-term visa.
Rakshanda was deported to Pakistan on April 29 and on June 6, the single-judge bench ordered her return to India. She had entered India on February 10, 1990, via a train through Attari on a visitor visa for 14 days to visit Jammu. She continued to stay on owing to the LTV granted by the authorities annually. During her stay, she married the Indian national in Jammu.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
&w=3840&q=100)
First Post
10 minutes ago
- First Post
'If her name or complexion bothers you...': Ohio SG Mathura Sridharan trolled, AG claps back to troll
Indian-origin jurist Mathura Sridharan received racist backlash from online trolls after she was appointed as Ohio's 12th solicitor general. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost hits back at the troll by issuing a lengthy statement on the matter read more Mathura Sridharan was trolled for her Indian-origin after her name was announced as Ohio's Solicitor General. LinkedIn Indian-origin Mathura Sridharan was appointed as Ohio's 12th solicitor general. However, her feat garnered wrath online with trolls questioning why a 'non-US-origin' person was picked for the post. Soon after her appointment, Sridharan's LinkedIn went viral with critics questioning her credibility. All this prompted Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost to issue a clarification, slamming the troll for ignorance. Yost, who appointed Mathura for the post, said that she is wrongly being portrayed as a non-American. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'A few commenters have asserted incorrectly that Mathura is not American. She is a United States citizen, married to a US citizen, and the child of naturalised US citizens,' he said. 'If her name or her complexion bothers you, the problem is not with her or her appointment,' Yost said in a statement. 'Mathura is brilliant… she won her argument at SCOTUS last year. Both the SGs she worked under (Flowers & Gaiser) recommended her. I told her when I originally hired her that I needed her to argue with me. She does… All the time! Excited to promote her. She will serve Ohio well,' he added. Trolls question her religious identity However, Yost's take on the matter was also met with trolling as people pointed out that she is not 'American-American', with some even questioning her religious identity. 'Is she a Christian? That's the biggest factor that concerns me. Based on the bindi on her forehead, I worry she is not,' one user wrote online. 'Another American job… given away to foreigners,' another wrote. 'She's Indian. They all have a loyalty first to other Indians. Horrible pick. Un-American. The GOP is pathetic,' a third user exclaimed. When it comes to Mathura's career, before joining the Ohio Solicitor's Office, Mathura clerked for Judge Steven J. Menashi of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Judge Deborah A. Batts of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. She holds a Juris Doctorate from the New York University School of Law, a Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as a Bachelor's Degree in Economics and Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Mint
10 minutes ago
- Mint
P Chidambaram's BIG charge against Election Commission: ‘Abusing its powers and trying to change electoral character'
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Sunday alleged that the Election Commission is trying to change the electoral character and patterns of states. The former Union Minister's allegation comes amid a raging row over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar Chidambaram asserted that this 'abuse of powers' must be fought politically and legally. The former home minister said the Bihar voter revision exercise is getting curiouser and curiouser. While 65 lakh voters are in danger of being disenfranchised in Bihar, reports of 'adding' 6.5 lakh persons as voters in Tamil Nadu is alarming and patently illegal, Chidambaram said in a post on X. "Calling them 'permanently migrated' is an insult to the migrant workers and a gross interference in the right of the electorate of Tamil Nadu to elect a government of its choice," the Rajya Sabha MP said. Why should the migrant worker not return to Bihar or his/her home state to vote in the State Assembly election, as they usually do, Chidambaram asked. "Does not the migrant worker return to Bihar at the time of the Chhath puja festival?" he said. "A person to be enrolled as a voter must have a fixed and permanent legal home. The migrant worker has such a home in Bihar (or another state). How can he/she be enrolled as a voter in Tamil Nadu?" Chidambaram said. If the migrant worker's family has a permanent home in Bihar and lives in Bihar, how can the migrant worker be considered as "permanently migrated" to Tamil Nadu, he further asked. "The ECI is abusing its powers and trying to change the electoral character and patterns of States. This abuse of powers must be fought politically and legally," Chidambaram said. The opposition has been protesting in both Houses of Parliament against the SIR, alleging the EC's exercise was aimed at "disenfranchising voters" in Bihar ahead of the Assembly elections. They have been demanding a discussion on the issue in both Houses of Parliament. Key Takeaways Concerns over the legitimacy of the Election Commission's voter roll revisions. Impact of migrant workers on electoral processes in their home states. The necessity for political and legal action against perceived electoral abuses.
&w=3840&q=100)
First Post
40 minutes ago
- First Post
Democracies snubbed, dictators courted: Inside Trump's embrace of Pakistan
US President Donald Trump looks on as a member of the media raises their hand, at the White House in Washington, DC, US, August 1, 2025. File Image/Reuters On July 31, 2025, Lara Loomer launched a broadside against billionaire Tom Barrack, President Donald Trump's ambassador to Turkey and special envoy for Syria. Loomer, whose outside vetting of Trump appointees has led to waves of firings across his national security bureaucracy, pulled no punches. 'His [Barrack's] appointment to high-level diplomatic posts is alarming, given that his primary expertise lies in leveraging political connections for financial gain,' she wrote. His actions have enabled Islamists to thrive, even at the expense of US national security. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'Barrack has a history of opaque financial dealings and what many view as political influence peddling,' she continued. 'His real estate empire, intertwined with Gulf investments, has long raised concerns about conflicts of interest and whether he is truly serving America or if he is flashing his political access.' She included in her tweet a copy of Barrack's 2018 indictment for acting as an unregistered foreign agent on behalf of Middle East interests. Barrack is the rule rather than the exception in Trump's inner circle. Many of the most influential people in the Trump administration have pre-service financial entanglements with Qatar. The US magazine Newsweek reported that, in addition to Trump himself, five major Trump administration officials have financial ties to Qatar: Chief-of-Staff Susie Wiles, FBI Director Kash Patel; Attorney General Pam Bondi; Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff; and Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin. Democrats remain up-in-arms over Trump's acceptance of a $400 million jet from Qatar, alleging it amounts to a bribe; given Republican concern that a desire to influence motivates the $20 billion in assistance that Qatar provides American universities, it is hard to deny that Qatari money is not altruistic. For almost a quarter century, successive American presidents have cultivated relations with India. The development of US-India ties has coincided with perhaps the most contentious period in US foreign policy since the debate between isolationists and internationalists in the 1930s. Israel, Russia, NATO, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and China each became political footballs. India, however, stood out as a rare example of bipartisanship. Every US president from George W Bush to Joe Biden worked to cultivate US-India ties. That commitment to a US-India partnership included Trump, at least in his first term. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD In his second term, Trump has staked out an opposite position. He approached Pakistani terrorism and its Indian victims with moral equivalency and even dined with Pakistan Army Chief Asim Munir, mastermind of the Pahalgam massacre, at the White House. Just as intelligence operatives recruit and compromise targets with either blackmail, bribes, or buffeting ego, so too did Islamabad handle Trump, telling him how much he deserved a Nobel Prize and entrancing Trump with notions of gas deals. The numbers do not lie. On July 31, 2025, Trump slapped 25 per cent sanctions on India, greater than Pakistan (19 per cent), Bangladesh (20 per cent), Sri Lanka (20 per cent), and Afghanistan (15 per cent). Trump treats India with disdain, belittling its economy and privileging countries like Pakistan and Sri Lanka that are Chinese satrapies and Bangladesh and Afghanistan that are hubs for Islamist terror. Each of those countries to which Trump offers better terms ranks well below India on Transparency International's annual corruption index. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD There is no proof that Pakistan, Qatar, or Turkey bribed Trump, though a commonality of Trump's two terms is the conflict of interest between public policy and personal business. Trump's reference to gas deals with Pakistan, his Qatari involvement, and his and Barrack's repeated endorsements of Turkish President Recep Erdogan are coincidences that no Indian should ignore, especially given the coincidences, Trump's policy choices, and the lack of any other logical policy-driven explanation. India must respond in the only way Trump will understand, by denying opportunities to American businesses until Trump or his successors change US policy and again ground it in a partnership of democracies and consensus against terrorism rather than a partnership with corrupt, terror-sponsoring dictatorships. Here, India's decision to abandon the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter makes sense. The US defence industry purposely spreads itself across states and Congressional districts in order to immunise itself from cutbacks by ensuring it always has several dozen, if not hundreds, of lawmakers willing to protect the corporate interest for the sake of their employees. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD According to the Congressional Research Service, F-35 components are produced across 250 different districts in 45 US states. The same pattern holds true with other platforms that the United States would like to sell to India. Cutting contracts makes single headlines, but sending diplomats to each Congressional district to explain why New Delhi made its decision will augment pressure on Trump, especially as midterm elections loom. Trump might even reverse course. While some politicians double down to save face, Trump knows no shame, and if the pressure is great enough, he might simply change policy and try to scrub his recent past in an Orwellian frenzy of sycophantic press and statements. This still leaves India with a problem in the short term: Given the threat China poses to India, some Indian politicians may wish to replace the F-35 with Russia's fifth-generation Sukhoi-57E; this would be a mistake, given Russia's failure to honour previous contracts. Rather, India might shift toward European aircraft until such a time that Trump departs and the United States can right its present wrongs. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Even if New Delhi abandons Lockheed Martin because Trump's antics have raised questions about American reliability, such systems represent not only a lethal combat platform but also a decades-long partnership of training and maintenance. Whatever animus New Delhi might have toward Washington, the long-term stability of Moscow remains a bad bet given the political vacuum that will develop after Putin's death. Trump treats India unfairly, but Trump is an old and, frankly, corrupt man whose time is limited. India will soon be the world's third largest economy; Trump's failure to recognise the benefits of that and the wisdom of choosing democracies over dictatorships and kleptocracies is America's loss. The current crisis, though, can be the stress test to prove the strength of US-India ties. Trump can become the exception that proves the rule. The US Congress still favours India over Pakistan, and every politician motivated more by national security than side business deals will remember which country sheltered Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and which country will drive the international economy through the 21st century. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Bribery can never provide a solid base for bilateral ties like democracy and mutual interests do. Pakistan, like Turkey, will ultimately fall into the dustbin of past American partners no longer worth a future administration's time and energy. India must fight back but should not go scorched earth out of animus toward a man for whom the curtain of power is already closing. Michael Rubin is director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of Firstpost.
