Plight of M'sian PR holder desperate to go to India
Published on: Friday, January 29, 2016
Kota Kinabalu: A 63-year-old mother of three is desperate to travel to India, even if just for a while, to see her only brother who fell sick after he got a stroke about 18 months ago.But Surjit Kaur a/p Khazan Singh has a problem - she is currently in the process of applying for Malaysian citizenship, her second attempt to do so, but her application has been put on hold with no definite answer from the relevant ministry.At the same time, she is afraid if her attempt to renew her Indian passport, which would allow her to travel out of the country, would jeopardise her citizenship application.
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Surjit, who is a Permanent Resident in Sabah, had already missed her mother's funeral three years ago after she failed to travel because her Indian passport had expired and the officers in the Indian High Commission office in Kuala Lumpur questioned the authenticity of her Indian citizenship."I was desperate to go to India to bid farewell to my mother but the High Commission office refused to even give me an emergency pass because they said they wanted to make sure I am really from India. They said it's because I have not travelled to India for 14 years," she said.Surjit said she first applied for Malaysian citizenship in 2011 but was informed by the National Registration Department in Putrajaya that she did not succeed in the application."After many phone calls made to the office, I was verbally informed by one of the staff in Putrajaya that they do not know why the application was rejected. I was not even given a black and white letter to advise me about it," she said.
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Convinced that she must have missed something in the first application, Surjit made a second attempt in 2013, making sure she submitted complete documentations with her application.However, she was informed that her application is now with the Home Ministry and she had to wait for another three years before she hears anything from the department.
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"Of course, I want so much to be a citizen of this country and I have proven it by staying here for the past 44 years and I have a PR status. I regret that my status was not rectified while my husband was still alive but it is all in the past," she said.Since her late husband Jogindar Singh was a Sabahan, all Surjit's children are citizens of the land with legal Sabahan birth certificates and hold legal Malaysian identification cards.When her husband passed away, she said, she was too occupied with a lot of things such as managing her late husband's properties and businesses that she did not even think about her Indian passport, never anticipating that her situation would have come to this."Now I am in a dilemma. I want to see my brother but I cannot travel with my red IC. I cannot renew my passport because I have applied for Malaysian citizenship. But I do not know whether I will get it anyway."Until I received news from the NRD, I cannot renew my passport. And if I failed in my application, I would have to wait, maybe years, before those officers in the High Commission of India office could finally confirm I was really born in India," she said.The current law allows PR holders who have stayed in Sabah continuously for 12 years to be considered for citizenship. However, exceptions are made for those who do not fulfil the pre-requisite but have letters of support from the Home Ministry accompanying their application.Last year, State NRD Director Ismail Ahmad commented that the many foreigners who hardly speak Malay and still retain their culture from their country of origin but possess genuine IC may have obtained the documents through legal means. Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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