This Article is From Aug 09, 2013

For Eid, Delhi court reunites Pakistani wife with Indian husband

For Eid,  Delhi court reunites Pakistani wife with Indian husband

Pakistan-born Nuzhat Jahan, reunited with her Indian husband

New Delhi: Nuzhat Jahan was given a very special Eid gift by the Delhi High Court - the Pakistani has been allowed to celebrate with her family.

Her husband, Mohammed Gulfam, is an Indian who lives in Delhi.

Three months ago, Nuzhat, 48, was found by the Delhi Police without a visa and was moved to a shelter for the homeless.

On Thursday, the court ruled that in three months, the Indian government must decide whether she can become an Indian citizen, a request she filed 17 years ago. Till then, she will stay at her Delhi residence.

"It's been an extremely painful experience, I will never forget these months," Nuzhat told NDTV, relieved to be finally with her husband and three children.

Gulfam and Nuzhat's story began two decades ago, in the shadow of the troubled history of their two countries separated by the bitter Partition of 1947. Gulfam's family stayed back in India, Nuzhat's went to Pakistan.

In the early 1980s, when Gulfam visited his uncle's family in Pakistan, he saw Nuzhat and it was love at first sight. The couple got married in 1983 and Nuzhat, on a visa to India, moved into her husband's home in old Delhi.

Nuzhat kept renewing her visa until her passport expired in 1994, and she was asked by Pakistani authorities to apply for Indian citizenship.

17 years on, her file remains stuck in a bureaucratic maze, but she says she doesn't need documents to call India her home.

"Pakistan was my past, India is my present" she says. "It is impossible for me to go back to Pakistan now - my children and grandchildren are all here."

Diplomatic tensions between India and Pakistan have been revived by the killing of five Indian soldiers by Pakistanis at the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir earlier this week.

"It would be great if the two countries could be at peace with each other," says Nuzhat. Her husband adds: "We are the same in every way. It is governments that create the divide."
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