India-Pakistan Wagah border (NARINDER NANU/AFP/Getty Images)After a struggle of nearly 12 years, Jamuna Mai, a Hindu from Pakistan, beat all odds to become the oldest person to have been accorded Indian citizenship at the age of 101, reports India Times.
After a long delay, her application for citizenship under the Indian Citizenship Act 1955 was cleared on Friday after Mai signed the final ‘exit document’, an undertaking of leaving Pakistan’s nationality, with the hope that India would also do the same for the other members in her family soon.
“Mai’s document was approved, and she got her citizenship certificate on Friday evening,’’ said, Jodhpur ADM, Jawahar Chaudhary.
An ecstatic Mai welcomed the developments by dancing with her son and distributing sweets with the family. “My family should also be given the same ID card,” said Mai. The news comes 12 years after 15 members of the Meghwal family crossed over to India via the Attari-Wagah border in August 2006 on a religious visa.
The Babri Masjid demolition in 1992 made the situation worse for the family. “Our relations with Muslim landowners and neighbours changed overnight. The nightmare for our community started then. By 2000, we decided to move from Pakistan and, in 2006, we bid farewell to the land of our ancestors forever,” said Atma Ram, one of Mai’s sons who migrated to India with her while the other is still in Pakistan.
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