Bengaluru: India has decided to give shelter to around 700 Sikhs and Hindus who are living a persecuted life in Afghanistan. 

“Ministry of Home Affairs has given its approval for providing a long term visa to Afghan Sikhs and Hindus which we usually give to persecuted minorities from the region,” said a top official from the Government of India.

 

“To begin with, over 700 such individuals have been identified and the required formalities are underway to bring them to India before 15 August,” added the top government official. 

It might be recalled that there was a terror attack in Kabul’s Hari Rai Sahib Gurudwara in which over 25 Sikh men, women and children were brutally killed on 25 March 2020 as they were holding prayers during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. 

Another website noted that India had thanked Afghanistan for the release of 55-year-old Nidan Singh Sachdeva, an Afghan Sikh community leader. He was abducted a month ago from a gurudwara in the Pakita province of Afghanistan and got released on Saturday.

The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), passed by the Indian Parliament last year was designed to facilitate the movement of such persecuted back to India. 

A note on CAA

The CAA, passed by both houses of the Indian Parliament last December, grants citizenship to non-Muslim minorities of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The only condition they need to fulfil is that they have to be in India hitherto December 31, 2014.

 

But the Congress and its coterie have resorted to a wilful campaign of spreading lies and misinformation, with a resolve to instigate the innocents against the Modi-led NDA government.

In spite of innumerable clarifications given by the PM and the Union home minister Amit Shah that the CAA doesn’t apply to any Indian citizen, protests continue across the nation.

What is essentially a one-time offer to integrate minorities with India is being seen as draconian and demonic.