‘What is our fault?’: Families separated at India-Pakistan border

NEW DELHI: Shahida’s face crumpled with grief every time she thought about the choice in front of her: Stay for love or go back to her siblings?

Shahida Adrees, now 61, moved to India from Pakistan in 2002, when she married her maternal cousin Adrees Khan, a resident of Punjab state.

The couple lived a peaceful, predictable life - Khan working as a driver and Shahida looking after their home and child.

Every few years, Shahida, who is staying in India on a long-term visa, would obtain a travel permit and make a trip to Pakistan to meet her family.

But that sense of routine was shattered last week when India suspended almost all visas for Pakistani citizens as part of its response to the brutal attack in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) that killed 26 people. Pakistan, which denies any involvement, has hit back with tit-for-tat measures and also cancelled most visas for Indians.

When Shahida heard the news, she knew what it meant; she could either go back to her siblings and other family members in Pakistan now, or stay and risk never seeing them again.

She chose to stay. Earlier this week, she cancelled her plans of going to Pakistan to see an ailing aunt. “If I had gone, I wouldn’t have been let back into India. But now that I am here, I don’t know if I’ll ever see my brothers and sisters again,” she says.

Shahida’s family is among hundreds in India and Pakistan who, with members on both sides of the borders, now face the risk of separation.

Some, like Shahida’s family, have tried to stay in touch with their roots through marriages with relatives across the border. In recent years, many couples have also met online, often overcoming insurmountable odds to stay together.

Many of them apply for long-term visas that need to be renewed periodically while others apply for citizenship of the respective countries - but the process can take years.