After 23 years, exiled Manipur couple returns home
The Delhi HC has allowed Luingam Luithui and his wife Peingamla, residents of Manipur, to return to India after 23 years in exile. The HC has directed the government to issue valid passports to the couple in an order dated August 28. Why did they require new passports? What was the Delhi HC's judgment? Read on to know.
DNA reports that in 1994, when the couple holidayed in Bangkok, Peingamla's passport was stolen. They approached the Indian Embassy but were denied a passport citing Luingam's alleged links with the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, an Indian unlawful organization. Subsequently, they contacted the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), which sent them to Canada. There, the Indian Embassy reportedly impounded Luingam's passport.
The Delhi HC has termed the couple's harassment as the "worst kind of deprivation possible." They called it "extremely distressing" that Indian citizens had to "seek refuge" from the UNHCR and "when deprived of their identities by the respondents, to seek passports from the Canadian authorities." The couple will now give up their Canadian citizenship to regain their Indian citizenship and return home.
