Jammu and Kashmir HC Directs Govt to Bring Back Woman Deported to Pakistan

New Delhi: The high court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh has ordered the Union home secretary to bring back to India a woman who was deported to Pakistan in wake of the crackdown on Pakistani nationals at the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack.

“Human rights are the most sacrosanct component of a human life and, therefore, there are occasions when a constitutional court is supposed to come up with SOS-like indulgence, notwithstanding the merits and demerits of a case, which can be adjudicated only upon in due course of time. Therefore, this court is coming up with a direction to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Government of India (GOI), to bring back the petitioner from her deportation,” said Justice Rahul Bharti in an order on June 6, 2025, reported The Hindu.

The petitioner, Rakshanda Rashid, who from Pakistan, had been staying in Jammu for the past 38 years with her husband and two children, before the 63-year-old was deported.

According to her daughter Falak Sheikh, ever since her deportation, Rashid had been staying alone in a hotel in Lahore and would soon run out of the money that she took from India.

“She was here on a long-term visa (LTV), yet she was deported to Pakistan. She applied for citizenship in 1996 but the application is yet to be processed. All her sisters are settled in other countries; she has no immediate relatives there. She took only ₹50,000 with her due to the cap on the currency one can carry across the border, and soon she will run out of money,” her daughter told the newspaper.

“First, she stayed in a paying guest accommodation and then moved to a hotel in Lahore. Her phone will stop working; she cannot purchase a local SIM card as foreign handsets do not work in Pakistan.  To keep international roaming, she needs to pay ₹30,000-40,0000, which she does not have,” she added.

According to the Court order, Sheikh Zahoor Ahmed, the husband of the petitioner, said his wife “has no one in Pakistan for her care and custody, particularly when she is suffering from multiple ailments and her health and life are at risk with each passing day and she is left to fend for herself as abandoned.”

Her husband is a retired government official.

“This court is bearing in mind that the petitioner was having the LTV status at relevant point of time which per se may not have warranted her deportation, but without examining her case in better perspective and coming up with a proper order with respect to her deportation from the authorities concerned, still she came to be forced out,” said Justice Bhati.

While the court in its order had set a 10-day timeline to bring Rashid back, her counsel Ankur Sharma said that Jammu and Kashmir authorities were yet to act upon the court’s order.

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