In Indian-run Kashmir, Pakistani women without a country yearn for a homeland they can’t visit
- Hundreds of Pakistani women crossed the frontier into Indian Kashmir decades ago, believing their ex-militant husbands’ promises of a better life
- But now they find themselves cut off and are pleading to be deported from a country that will not grant them citizenship nor allow them to return home
Misbah Mushtaq, 30, came to Handwara town in the disputed area from Pakistan in 2015 with her husband, a former Kashmiri militant who crossed the border for weapons training in the early 1990s when an insurgency erupted in the Himalayan region.
India and Pakistan have clashed over control of Kashmir for decades, with three wars fought over the region. Like Misbah’s husband, many other Kashmiri youths also received weapons training after moving to Pakistan during the insurgency. Some militants did not return and settled in Pakistan, marrying locals.
In 2010, Indian officials in Jammu and Kashmir launched a rehabilitation policy for Kashmiri militants in Pakistan who had given up insurgent activities and were willing to return.
The scheme did not succeed as intended, however. The returning militants struggled to secure employment, their children faced difficulties gaining admission to schools, and Pakistani women were not permitted to return to their homeland, nor could they gain Indian citizenship.
