Pakistan-born Bollywood singer and actress Salma Agha will get an Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card that will offer her multiple entry, multi-purpose life-long visa to visit India and exemption from reporting to police, Times of India reported on Monday.
“We have decided to grant Salma Agha the OCI card after following the due procedure,” a senior Home Ministry official said on Monday, according to TOI.
The 59-year-old artiste who is a British citizen met Home Minister Rajnath Singh, apparently to express her gratitude for the gesture. As per rules, a foreign national having Indian parentage is eligible for OCI card, except those having Pakistani and Bangladeshi descent.
In her application, Agha referred to her Indian roots in her maternal grandfather Jugal Kishore Mehra and the fact that she was a British national. Mehra was a noted actor and his wife and Salma’s grandmother, Anwari Begum, was a star singer in the 1930s and 1940s.
Separately, after a 13-year long wait, a Pakistani woman was granted Indian citizenship, the Press Trust of India reported.
According to officials, earlier this month, Tahira Hazoor received a certificate of Indian citizenship from deputy commissioner Pardeep Sabharwal.
Tahira, 33, who hails from Faisalabad, got married to Maqbool Ahmad, a resident of Qadian, Gurdaspur, in 2003. She applied for Indian citizenship in March 2011 after completing the mandatory seven-year stay in India.
