MLA claims Shaurya Chakra winner's mom among prospective J&K deportees, cops issue denial

Time of India

29-04-2025

Image credit: PTI
SRINAGAR: National Conference
MLA Sajad Shafi
alleged Tuesday that the mother of
Shaurya Chakra
awardee
Mudasir Ahmed Sheikh
, the J&K Special Operations Group constable who died fighting terrorists in 2022, was among those escorted out of their villages in Uri as part of the govt-ordered exercise to deport citizens of Pakistan or PoK.
Baramulla Police contested the allegation, saying 'reports circulating on social media regarding the alleged repatriation of the mother of Shaheed constable Mudasir Ahmad @ Bindaas are false, baseless, and categorically denied'.
Shafi, who represents Uri in the J&K assembly, said he was shocked to find Shameema Akhtar's name on the list of prospective deportees. 'She gave a brave son to this country," he said. 'Many other women of my constituency have been asked to return to Pakistan without delay.'
Shameema, who travelled to Delhi along with her husband in 2023 to receive their son Mudasir's posthumous Shaurya Chakra from President Droupadi Murmu, has been living in J&K for 40 years. Her parents were from PoK, locals said.
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Mudasir had been part of a joint anti-terror operation with the Army in north Kashmir's Baramulla on May 25, 2022, in which he helped gun down three Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists before being fatally shot.
Another woman on the deportation list, Aliza Rafiq, said she moved to Kashmir from PoK in 2013 under the rehabilitation policy introduced during CM Omar Abdullah's first term in office. She settled in Bandipora's Nadihal, her husband Mohammad Rafiq Bhat's ancestral village in north Kashmir, with their two children. A third daughter was born in J&K.
Rafiq had crossed over to PoK in 2003 – he was 18 at the time – for arms training. He married Aliza and lived there for a decade before choosing surrender and rehabilitation.
"I have received a notice asking me to leave the country with my two older daughters,' Aliza said. 'The notice states that any child born here must be left behind. How can I abandon my third daughter, who is 10?'
The rehabilitation policy, announced in 2010, had been billed as a major confidence-building measure for J&K. It enabled former terrorists who had settled in PoK to return via four approved routes: Poonch–Rawalakote, Uri–Muzaffarabad, Wagah (Punjab) and Delhi airport.
Although widely publicised, the policy lacked clear implementation guidelines. Of the more than 1,200 applications, only about 350 were approved, according to officials. Most returnees, including Rafiq, used the Nepal route to enter India based on a purportedly informal understanding between Delhi and Islamabad.
PDP president and ex-CM Mehbooba Mufti said the post-Pahalgam govt directive to deport all Pakistani nationals from India was riddled with 'humanitarian concerns', particularly in J&K. 'Many of those affected are women who came to India 30-40 years ago, married Indian citizens, raised families, and have long been part of our society. We urge the govt to reconsider this decision, adopting a compassionate approach regarding women, children and the elderly,' she said.
CPM's M Y Tarigami, too, called for a rethink. 'Deporting women from Pakistan and PoK who came here after the govt rolled out the rehabilitation policy in 2010 is inhumane. These women, married to local Kashmiri men, have built their lives here, living peacefully since their arrival,' he said.