When doctor turns a foreigner in homeland
Hyderabad: Despite being a doctor and well aware of the rules, a Hyderabad-born doctor having Pakistani citizenship made the mistake of overstaying in the city and landed in trouble when police knocked on her door.
Not only the doctor and her physically challenged son landed in trouble, but now the life of another woman, who married the physically challenged son of the doctor, is at stake.
This is the story of Dr Atiya Parveen, who took her MBBS degree from Osmania Medical College in 1985 and left for Saudi Arabia. As love knows no bounds, the Indian doctor fell in love with a Pakistani national and married him to become Atiya Jabeen Ather.
However, it turned out to be a short-lived marriage after the couple moved to Pakistan. She walked out of the troubled marriage, divorcing her Pakistani husband and returned to India in 2006 with her physically challenged son Mohammed Habib.
She started practising in Marredpally and got her son admitted into St British High School at Noor Khan Bazaar. The boy fell in love with Sayeeda Fatima, daughter of Baqar Hussain Razvi of Kotla Alijah.
Baqar, who was in UAE, rushed back to India and tried to counsel his daughter not to see Mohammed Habib. But, the young lovers fled one fine day and got married.
Even as the young couple started their new life, misfortune descended on them in the form of Special Branch.
The special branch officials stumbled upon the family while verifying the records of foreigners overstaying in the city. They picked up Atiya and Habib and booked them under Foreigners' Act and Indian Passport Act. They were handed over to the local police.
The 50-year-old doctor Atiya did not bother to renew her Pakistani passport. Neither did she inform the local authorities about her stay and sought permission for extended stay.
Instead, she chose to stay illegally and got her son admitted to a school. She should have followed the laws of the land, a police official said.
It is now not clear whether they would be deported to Pakistan. But the family of Fatima is worried a lot as to what would happen if the doctor and her son were deported to Pakistan.
Yet, Atiya is not ready to leave the land where she was born. It has to be seen whether Indian government allows the family to stay in Hyderabad in one way or the other.
News Posted: 13 February, 2013
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