Over 40 Pakistani nationals granted Indian citizenship in Pune

"Total 45 applicants were granted Indian citizenship on Thursday. Most of these applications were from Pakistan nationals, while one or two applications were from Afghanistan and Bangladesh nationals, who all have been given the Indian citizenship," Pune District Collector Naval Kishore Ram told PTI.

Pune district officials said these applicants had migrated to India long back and they had been staying in Pune for the past many years.

"Some of these applicants came to India 40 years ago, but they did not have the Indian citizenship. After the amendment in the Citizenship Act 1955, the district collector has been empowered to give citizenship to applicants from the minorities. As per that amendment, I have given the citizenship to these persons," Ram said.

According to the district administration officials, these applications were pending with the administration for quite a long time.

"These applications require a lot of scrutiny. Various agencies are also involved in clearing these applications.

After we got the clearance from agencies like Intelligence Bureau (IB), I called all of them and instead of giving them multiple hearings, I cleared their proposals only after one hearing," the collector said.