Sikh foreign nationals who were blacklisted by the government
due to involvement in anti-India activities has been reduced from 312 to just 2
as a home ministry official reported on Friday. The Sikhs who were barred from
travelling back to India due to carrying out anti-nation activities were
blacklisted by various Indian missions abroad that have now been discontinued.
Eligibility
The 312 nationals removed from the Central Adverse List are
now eligible to get Indian visa and Overseas Indian Card (OCI) in due course
while only two-person figure is in the list now. Thereby, these Sikh foreign nationals
are eligible for availing visa services to visit their families in India and
reunite with their roots.
Current
practice by Indian Mission abroad
All the Indian
Mission/Posts abroad have been advised to grant proper visas to all categories
of asylees and derivative asylees or their family members whose names do not
occur in the Central Adverse List with the procedure followed for other
categories of applicants of the same nationality.
Whereas, all the categories of the asylees eligible for
availing long term India Visa are too eligible to apply for Overseas Citizen of
India (OCI) cardholder after held or applied visas for a minimum of two years.
Why did centre remove names of blacklisted Sikhs?
The decision was carried out by the government after security
nationals reviewed the Central Adverse List or blacklist with 314 listed names
of foreign nationals barred.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to the reviewing of the
Central Adverse List at a meeting with UK based Sikhs during his London visit
in 2015 and later he mandated National Security Advisor Ajit Doval to initiate
the exercise within-firm security. During the next four years the list
progressively pruned while there had been approaches to do away with the list
symbolising a fractious relationship between Sikhs living abroad and the Indian
states since 1984 Operation Blue-star.’
Why were
the Sikh foreign nationals blacklisted?
A militant movement in the 1980s that aimed at separating Sikh’s
homeland trampled over Sikh Indian Nationals and Foreign Nationals that fell
under the anti-India propaganda. Few of them fled India to escape Indian
authorities taking asylum outside India highlighting their names in the adverse
list 2016 that made them ineligible to avail visa services to come back to
India.
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