The deadline for Pakistani citizens to leave the country – with exceptions for those who are on medical visas in India – passed on Sunday, but many families were still scrambling to the Indian side of the border in Attari town in northern Punjab state to cross into Pakistan.
Some were arriving on their own and others were being deported by police.
“We have settled our families here. We request the government not to uproot our families,” said Sara Khan, a Pakistani national who was ordered back to Pakistan without her husband, Aurangzeb Khan, who holds an Indian passport.
Waiting on the Indian side of the border crossing, Khan carried her 14-day-old child in her arms. She said Indian authorities did not give her any time to recuperate from a caesarean section and that her long-term visa was valid until July 2026.
“They [authorities] told me you are illegal and you should go,” said Khan, who has been living in Indian-controlled Kashmir since 2017.
“They gave us no time. I could not even change my shoes.”
Tensions between rivals India and Pakistan have escalated after gunmen killed 26 people, most of them Indian tourists, near the resort town of Pahalgam in disputed Kashmir.
At least three tourists who survived the massacre said that the gunmen singled out Hindu men and shot them from close range. The dead included a Nepalese citizen and a local Muslim pony ride operator.
India has described the massacre as a “terror attack” and accused Pakistan of backing it. Pakistan has denied any connection to the attack, which was claimed by a previously unknown militant group calling itself the Kashmir Resistance.
The massacre set off tit-for-tat diplomatic measures between India and Pakistan that included cancellation of visas and a recall of diplomats. New Delhi also suspended a crucial water-sharing treaty with Islamabad and ordered its border shut with Pakistan. In response, Pakistan has closed its airspace to Indian airlines.
As tensions escalate, cross-border firings between Indian and Pakistani soldiers have also increased along the Line of Control, the de facto frontier that separates Kashmiri territory between the two rivals. (AP)
