Polish photographer Marta Kotlarska with her daughter Alicja Wanatko.
The daughter of a Polish woman, earlier separated due to visa-related discrepancies from her mother, has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and newly-appointed External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, requesting them to help them return to India.
Alicja Wanatko, the daughter, wrote in her letter:" My mum could not re-enter India on 24th March, 2019 after a short trip out and we were blacklisted due to our overstay," Alicja has said in her letter, which was tweeted to PM Modi and S Jaishankar by her mother.
"I with my mum now but I miss my life in India. I feel so alone away from everything I have always known in India. I know my animals will be so confused without me and I cannot sleep without feeling angry or upset.
"It feels like everything is just destroyed again. I pray to Shiva and Nanda Devi to help us and I have decided to write to you because you are the most powerful person that can help us come back to India, my home. Please help us and remove us from this blacklist," she said.
Marta Kotlarska, a Polish artist and photographer who is on a multiple entry B-2 business visa to India, was blacklisted by the Foreigner Regional Registration Office in Uttarakhand for overstaying "due to a misunderstanding", but added that she had paid the requisite fines prescribed by law.
She had left for Sri Lanka a few days earlier from Goa, where her daughter lives with guardians, because she was about to exceed her 180-day limit of stay in India and visa renewal norms required for foreign nationals to formally re-enter the country.
She was turned away from the Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru from Sri Lanka, where she had gone to renew her Indian visa. With her daughter studying in Goa, Martha had to wait in Thailand before she was allowed to return to India, pick up her daughter and leave the country within a few days.