As many as 7,691 Pakistanis and 32,644 Bangladeshis were found to be overstaying in India even after their visas expired, a Right to Information (RTI) reply has revealed, Indian media reported on Monday. The information was given by Indian Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), foreigners division, in response to an RTI application by activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal. The foreigners division of MHA has informed that the data is available only until 2009 and the data for last year and this year has not been compiled yet. “It is not possible to estimate the total number of such foreign nationals, including Pakistani and Bangladeshi nationals, who have entered into the country without valid travel documents and are staying in the country since the entry of such foreign nationals into the country is clandestine and surreptitious,” the MHA said in the RTI reply.
According to December 31, 2009 statistics of MHA, 7,691 Pakistanis, many of them Hindus and Sikhs, were overstaying in India. “A number of Pakistani nationals belonging to the minority community in Pakistan, the Hindus and Sikhs, have come to India with a desire to get Indian citizenship. But the central database about Hindus who have come from Pakistan and Bangladesh in anticipation of Indian Citizenship is not maintained,” the MHA has said in the RTI reply. Almost 32,644, Bangladeshi nationals have overstayed in India. Apart from Pakistan and Bangladesh, 33,106 individuals of other nationalities were also found to be overstaying in India. The RTI data indicate that after Pakistan and Bangladesh, the other nationals belong to Afghanistan (13,569), Sri Lanka (2,490), US (1,535) and Nigeria (1,121). The ministry has also revealed that during 2009, 12,147 foreign nationals, including five Pakistani nationals and 10,602 Bangladeshi nationals, were deported from the country.