Visa ends, and so does India-Pak love story

LOVE ACROSS THE BORDER: Shafaiyat Hussain is battling out in the courts to get his wife back from Pakistan.

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Poonch, J&K: A cross-border love story is making news these days. A resident of border village of Poonch is fighting a battle in the courts after his wife, a citizen of Pakistan, was forcibly sent back when her travel permit expired.

For Shafaiyat Hussain, it is the Indo-Pak border which has separated him from his wife and he is now battling out in the courts to get his wife back.

He married Fazilat Bi in March this year. Bi then traveled on a Poonch-Rawalakote bus on a 28 day permit but after the permit expired she was forcibly sent back to Pakistan by the police.

“My wife stayed here for a month and few days but as her permit wasn’t extended she was arrested by the police and send back to Pakistan. I wasn’t at home when the police came,” says Hussain.

Fazilat Bi is pregnant and Hussain has no direct access to her because phone calls to Pakistan are banned in Jammu and Kashmir.

“She is pregnant and has no support. She does not even have a house of her own. She stays in a rented room and more over who will take care of the her and the baby,” says Hussain’s father Muneer Hussain.

However, the local officials say they are helpless and the matter has to be decided by the Ministry of Home and External Affairs.

“We need to follow the laws and permit procedure,” says DCP Poonch Rajendra Singh.