65 families expelled from Chitral in 1951 seek citizenship

A two-member bench comprising Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Muhammad Younas Thaheem issued the notice to the secretary interior. He was directed to explain as to why Pakistani citizenship is not being granted to the 65 families comprising hundreds of people. The court also restrained the local administration from expelling them from the district or forcing them to get refugee cards. Muhammad Yaqoob and others, residents of Ghahirat in Chitral, had filed the writ petition to seek Pakistani citizenship. The petitioners’ lawyers, Muhammad Asif and Mohibullah Terichvi, submitted before the bench that the families were forcibly expelled by the ruler from the district in 1951. They migrated to Afghanistan and took refuge there. They said after the now defunct Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, these families returned to native area and applied to Ministry of Interior for issuance of certificate of Pakistani citizenship to them. The lawyers said the local administration had cleared them for being the citizens of Pakistan, but the Ministry of Interior was not issuing them certificates, making them suffer.–The News ]]>