Nisar takes notice of ‘Pakistani’ woman jailed in IOK

Rubina, her little daughter have been languishing in Kot Bhalwal jail since 2012

ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Sunday took notice of the imprisonment of a Pakistani woman and her four-year-old daughter in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK). The woman, Rubina, has been languishing in a jail in IOK for the past four years, according to media reports.

Nisar took notice of the issue after it gained traction in local media and ordered the Director Immigration and chairman of the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) to verify her identity and citizenship on ‘war footing’.



“If Rubina is Pakistani, then the Ministry of Interior along with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will make arrangements to bring her back to Pakistan,” the interior minister said. NADRA and the Passport Directorate have been given a 48-hour deadline to verify the woman’s credentials.

Rubina, who reportedly hails from Hyderabad, went to India for asthma treatment in 2012. According to reports, she was accompanied by her husband and infant daughter when she arrived in the neighbouring country. Shortly afterwards, Rubina’s husband allegedly abandoned her and their daughter in New Delhi, taking away her passport, visa and money, an Indian media report said.



According to the reports, some locals, taking pity on Rubina, gave her some money to travel to the Wagah border so she could return to Pakistan. However, having been left without any documentation to identify herself, she was not allowed entry into the country. Rubina later went to IOK to try her luck and cross the border, but could not do so. She was then arrested by Indian security forces on November 6, 2012 and imprisoned in IOK’s Kot Bhalwal jail.

A human rights’ lawyer is fighting her case and pressing for her return to Pakistan. A local court had ordered her to return to her homeland.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 2^nd, 2017.