Sixty-four Pakistani nationals, who have been lodged in Tihar Jail for the last four years as they refused to go back to their country, will soon live a free life in Canada and the US.
As they are being provided refugee status in Canada and the US, the jail authorities, with the help of United Nations High Commission for Refugee (UNHCR) officials, will teach them English and the lifestyle of the two countries.
The UNHCR has granted them a status of refugees and now they will be settled in the US and Canada, sources informed.
Tihar Jail officials said that both the countries have agreed to provide their land to the refugees. “These Pakistani nationals refused to go back to their country and burnt their passports at Jantar Mantar in April 2007 and they were arrested for this. Since then they have been lodged in Tihar Jail. These 64 inmates, including 18 women and 12 children, pleaded in the Delhi high court in 2010 that they did not intend to go back to Pakistan. They told the court that they will be tortured in their own country,” a senior jail authority said.
The Indian government tried to send them back to Pakistan many times but they repeatedly refused and proffered to stay in an Indian jail.
Sources in the Tihar jail confirmed that these inmates are Muslim, as they offer namaz, but they also believe in their godman, named Gauhar Shahi. They have been alleging that they were tortured for their faith in Gauhar Shahi. These inmates are lodged in jail number four and six.
A UNHCR team has already interviewed these inmates to know why they do not want to go back to their country.