Babar Rather
Srinagar, Feb 01 : Reiterating their long pending demand to government of providing legal travel documents back, Pakistani wives of ex-Kashmiri militants, who returned from across the Line of Control under a rehabilitation scheme on Monday again staged a protest.
Dozens of wives assembled here at Press Enclave Srinagar and staged a protest demonstration to press for their demand of availing travel documents so they can fly back to their homeland.
They said that despite their repeated protests, the government has turned deaf ears towards them and have failed so far to address their genuine issues.
“If the government can allow the ladies among us to contest the DDC polls why aren’t they providing us our travel documents back,” they asked.
Saira, who lives in Kupwara said “We have our families on the other side of the border, we too are humans and we want to meet our loved ones.
She said that they have knocked on almost all the doors but don’t know why their voices go unheard?.
They have again reiterated their demand and have appealed to both governments in Pakistan as well as in India to provide them back their travel documents and facilitate them in meeting their loved ones.
Hundreds of Kashmiri men who went to PoK for arms training in the 1990s and early 2000s came back with wives after then Omar Abdullah-led J&K government introduced a “rehabilitation scheme” in 2010 for those who had crossed over to the other side of the LoC between 1889 and 2009.
However, a decade later, the policy has left behind a trail of broken families, domestic abuse, unemployment and for many wives of former militants, a yearning for their home. (KDC)
