PESHAWAR, July 11: An Indian woman, who embraced Islam and married a Pakistani, but faces a tough battle to live in this country, says that the judiciary is her last hope in getting citizenship here.
Mrs Hafsa Aman and members of her family told Dawn that they were passing through a phase of uncertainty. They expressed the hope that the Peshawar High Court would help them by declaring government's order of not granting her citizenship as illegal and unconstitutional.
"I don't regret my decision of converting to Islam and marrying Aman Khan," said Mrs Aman while speaking to this reporter at her residence in Mohalla Khan Khelan in district Mardan, some 60km north-east of Peshawar.
She said: "People here are very loving and caring, due to which I am not missing my family." The woman, who is expecting a child on Aug 13, said she was not sure whether the child would be born to an Indian or a Pakistani mother.
Mrs Aman, whose former name was Divya Dayanan, said her parents had not accepted this reality and if she was deported to India they would force her to remove her present religion. She belongs to the southern Indian state of Kerala.
"I don't want to leave my religion, husband and in-laws," she added. She had talked to her mother after her marriage, but she (mother) was very much annoyed at her decision.
The woman, who speaks English and Urdu, said: "Now I started understanding Pushto, but cannot speak it." A doctor by profession, Mrs Aman works in Mardan Surgical Hospital, a private health care facility at Sheikh Maltoon Mardan.
Her mother-in-law, Mrs Nizakat Khan, said the entire family was passing through anxiety about her fate. They are not sure as to what would happen to her daughter-in-law. "This anxiety is not good for Hafsa and her child," she told Dawn.
Asked what was her reaction when she came to know about the decision of her son, she said they were feeling proud of themselves as it was the blessing of Almighty Allah that a girl had converted to Islam because of them. "We consider her our daughter and not daughter-in-law," she maintained.
Mrs Khan said her son returned from Ukraine, where the couple had first met, in 1998. But they remained in touch through telephone and the internet. "Almost every night we would receive a telephone call from Hafsa and she was a familiar name in our family," she added.
Aman Khan, 25, said that for the last one year he had been running from pillar to post seeking justice, but the interior division in Islamabad refused to grant his wife her legal right.
He told Dawn that he went to Ukraine after passing his secondary school examinations here and remained there from 1995 to 1998. He had taken admission in medicine where Hafsa was his class fellow."
As I was not feeling comfortable with dead bodies I realised that I am not fit for medicine, therefore I quit studies there and came back," he added. The couple got married on July 16, 2003, and since then they have been trying to get the required citizenship.
Ihsan Muhammad Khan, father of Aman, said he was unable to understand why the government had been treating his daughter-in-law in such a manner. But they were happy with the interim relief granted by the High Court. He expressed the hope that they would be given permanent relief.
After expiry of the stay permit of Hafsa on March 7, the local police was continuously visiting their residence to convey that the government wanted her deportation. The High Court granted interim relief to the woman on June 23 and directed the government not to deport her till further order.