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The Jammu and Kashmir High Court suspended the deportation of a policeman and his eight siblings, including five sisters.

The family, sent to Attari border in Punjab, is now returning home in Jammu's Poonch district after the court ruled that they are prima facie residents of the Union Territory.

 Why was the family being deported?

The nine members of the extended family were among the more than two dozen people, mostly from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), who were served deportation notices by authorities in Poonch, Rajouri and Jammu districts. The move came after the Pahalagam terror attack on April 22 that claimed 26 lives. In the aftermath of the attack, the Centre instructed that all residents of Pakistan not holding long-term, official or diplomatic visas must leave India.

On Monday, the police took all the nine into custody. The same night they were driven to Attari in Punjab for deportation on Tuesday morning.

According to PTI, some Pakistani women who married the J&K residents have already been sent to Pakistan, while several are still waiting at the Attari Border to be deported.

A worried family

Iftkhar Ali has been serving in the J&K Police for 27 years and is currently posted at the Katra base camp for the Vaishno Devi shrine, according to PTI.  His siblings told Indian Express that their father Faqur Din was a “hereditary state subject’ (as per the permanent resident certificate which ceased to exist post abrogation of Article 370 in 2019) as well as an Indian citizen as per the 1955 Citizenship Act. They also said he owned about 17 acres of land and a house at Salwah village. He was a permanent resident of J&K even at the time of the enactment of the J&K Constitution in 1957.

What did the court say?

“(The) petitioners be not asked or forced to leave the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. This direction is, however, subject to objections from the other side," Justice Rahul Bharti ordered after hearing the plea filed by Ali.

Admitting their petition, supported by revenue records to prima facie establish that they are bona fide residents of Poonch district, the judge asked government lawyers to submit a detailed report within two weeks and listed the case for the next hearing on May 20.

The court also directed the Poonch deputy commissioner to furnish an affidavit with respect to the status of property holding, if any, by the petitioners.

Speaking about the court’s order, socio-political activist Safeer Choudhary told PTI, “The deportation of Ali and his siblings was put on hold by the court’s orders. The authorities have released them, and they are being brought back from Punjab."

Earlier in the day, Choudhary, who was staging a protest with the wife and two minor children of Ali, had mentioned that neither civil nor police officers were taking responsibility for implementing the court order.

However, Poonch SSP Shafqat Hussain told Indian Express that there was “uncertainty about their whereabouts”.

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