By IANS,
Mumbai : In a tricky case, the Bombay High Court has asked the Maharashtra government to give details of the prosecution of a 27-year-old man born in Pakistan-administered Kashmir but living in Mumbai for over a decade, a lawyer said Wednesday.
“In an affidavit filed in the high court, Siraj Khan has said that he was born in the area known as Pakistani Kashmir. But now, he is a Pakistani citizen because his parents have been absorbed as Pakistani citizens,” Khan’s lawyer Ejaz Naqvi told IANS.
At the previous hearing, the court asked him to clarify his citizenship.
According to Naqvi, the state government told the court in August that Jammu and Kashmir, including Pakistan-administered Kashmir, were a part of India and the residents there were Indians.
In his petition, Khan, 27, appealed to the court that he be sent back to Pakistan-administered Kashmir. He said that he had run away from home, when he was aged nine, to go to his relative’s place but ended up in Lahore. Following this, he accidentally crossed into India.
A division bench comprising Justice S.S. Jadhav and Justice Abhay Oka directed the state to take instructions on whether the prosecution should be dropped.
Khan also sought the quashing of a first information report (FIR) registered against him under various sections of the Passports Act and the Foreigners Act and sought direction to be sent back to Pakistan-administered Kashmir, along with his family.
The court would next hear the case Oct 16.