Srinagar, Apr 30: In a scene that has left the village of Sharda Sharief in tears, two elderly sisters—Sageer Fatima (63) and Zameer Fatima (67)—were repatriated to Pakistan on Tuesday after spending more than four decades in India.
The sisters, frail and ailing, had arrived in India in 1983 with their mother and had lived since in the Thana Mandi area of Rajouri district. Their sudden deportation, after 43 years of residence, has shocked local residents and devastated their extended families.
Sageer Fatima, speaking through tears before her departure, pleaded for compassion. “We have been asked to leave India, but our entire family lives in Rajouri. We want to spend our remaining years with our children and grandchildren,” she said. “My mother died here, my father passed away in the 1990s, and my brother is no more. There is no one in Pakistan for us.”
She made a heartfelt appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to allow them to stay on humanitarian grounds.
Her sister, Zameer Fatima, who is paralysed and battling severe heart disease, was carried on shoulders by three women to the deportation vehicle. “This is the most painful separation of our lives,” she said. “Just six months ago, I lost my daughter. Two of my sons are in Dubai, and one has just returned home.”
Her son, Majid, described the ordeal as “unbearable.” “My mother has suffered two heart attacks and is wheelchair-bound. We just want to live in peace. We have no links to terrorism. Why must they leave?” he asked.
Majid also condemned the recent terrorist attack in Pahalgam and questioned the rationale behind the deportation. “What is their fault? We are law-abiding citizens. My mother came here as a child. Where will she go now?”
The sisters’ deportation has reverberated throughout the community, where they had lived quietly for decades. Zameer had worked in the Social Welfare Department for 35 years and raised her children in India. “She has no one in Pakistan. Her children and grandchildren are here,” said local resident Mohammad Usman.
“This is heartbreaking,” added another son, a third-generation family member in India. “She came here in 1983. She cannot walk, she is a heart patient. How is this justice?”
Family members said they were given only two days’ notice by the police. “It was sudden and traumatic,” said Fareed Ahmad, a relative. “Her daughter died on voting day, just after casting her ballot. Now she has no one left.”
In a parallel development, authorities in Mendhar, Poonch district, repatriated 11 Pakistani nationals on Tuesday. They had entered India on valid visas nearly 45 years ago and had been living in Gold village. Like the Rajouri case, scenes of grief unfolded as families bid emotional goodbyes. Long embraces, silent prayers, and tearful farewells marked their final moments on Indian soil.
This wave of repatriations comes amid heightened tensions between India and Pakistan following the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam, in which 26 civilians—mostly tourists—were killed. The attack triggered a week-long exchange of gunfire along the Line of Control (LoC), straining diplomatic and local relations.
