Patna: A Pakistani national has refused to return to his homeland despite the expiry of his visa, saying he wants to die on Indian soil.
The man is currently in jail, awaiting the Indian government’s decision over his request to grant him Indian citizenship.
Police said Syed Naqi Alam had come to India on a month-long visa in 2012, to meet his parents who are settled in Arwal town of Jehanabad district in central Bihar.
After meeting his parents, however, he developed an emotional bond with them and continued staying with his family despite his visa expiring.
Subsequently, the police arrested him and sent him to jail for violating visa rules. Right now, he is lodged in Kako Mandal jail of Jehanabaqd district, yet he is happy to find himself close to the home of his parents, who visit him regularly.
“He doesn’t want to return to Pakistan. He wants to stay with us here and also die on Indian soil. We hope the Indian government will seriously consider his appeal and grant him Indian citizenship,” his wife Aasara Nigar told the media on Friday.
“I am very hopeful that my husband will come to meet me one day, and he won’t be asked to return to Pakistan,” she added.
Alam married Nigar during his short stay with his parents in Bihar. She is his second wife. He had married Raftjehan of Phulwarisharif in Patna first, but they split up soon. He then married Nigar. “He is so near, yet too far,” she remarked about her husband now lodged in the nearby jail, but still a Pakistani national.
The story about Alam being Pakistani national, while his father Dr Masood Alam, Indian national lives here in Jehanabad district with all his relatives, is an interesting one. According to their family, many of Dr Masood’s relatives migrated to Pakistan and settled there, while he preferred to stay in India.
Recently, when some of Dr Masood’s Pakistani relatives came here to meet him, Naqi Alam went back with them to Pakistan. Later, he got Pakistani citizenship.
A twist in the tale came in 2012, when Alam returned to India to meet his parents but then refused to go back to Pakistan.
“The man is in jail for violating visa rules,” local jailor Sanjeev Kumar told the media on Friday.
Family members said Naqi Alam has filed a petition with the Indian government seeking Indian citizenship, but the government is yet to take any decision so far.
According to an official report, a total of 15,179 Pakistani nationals overstayed in India on lapsed visas, with Rajasthan leading the count.
