By Tauseef Ahmad & Sajid Raina
Bandipora: Aliza Begum, a 42-year-old housewife, never imagined that a single government notice would obliterate the life she had built over 12 years in Kashmir, separating her from everything she loved: her family and her home.
When the head of her village came to deliver the notice on 28 August 2025, Aliza, from Mirpur in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), thought it was a joke.
She had four days to leave her village, Nadihal in Bandipora, 60 km north of Srinagar, or face a prison term of three years, a fine of Rs 300,000 or both.
Two days earlier, terrorists killed 26 people in Pahalgam, a popular tourist destination at the centre of the valley. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government blamed Pakistan and has since suspended a water treaty, closing the main Attari border in Punjab, banning Pakistani nationals from travelling to Indian, and expelling those in India.
Aliza married Rafiq Ahmad in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and came to Kashmir with the former Kashmiri militant through a 2010 rehabilitation policy for militants who crossed to PoK between 1989 and 2009 but had given up the insurgency and wanted to return with their families.
In 2017, FirstPost reported that 377 former militants returned under the policy, along with 864 family members via Nepal and Bangladesh since 2010, as per the government.
The policy was instituted by then and current Chief Minister Omar Abdullah after it was cleared by the Union Government, run by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of the Congress Party.
Ahmad, 47, said that he had left his life of militancy behind a decade ago and built a modest life with her in their village. They had opened a shop where they sold milk and raised three children.
This story was originally published in article-14.com. Read the full story here.
