India to revoke Aatish Taseer's OCI card

A home ministry spokesperson said Taseer becomes ineligible to hold an OCI card, as per the Citizenship Act, 1955, as the OCI card is not issued to any person whose parents or grandparents are Pakistanis and he hid this fact.

New Delhi:British-born writer Aatish Ali Taseer stands to lose the Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card and his future visit to India is likely to be banned as he allegedly concealed the fact that his father was a Pakistani.

A home ministry spokesperson said Taseer becomes ineligible to hold an OCI card, as per the Citizenship Act, 1955, as the OCI card is not issued to any person whose parents or grandparents are Pakistanis and he hid this fact.

As per the Citizenship Act, if the registration as an OCI cardholder was obtained using fraud, false representation or concealment of any material fact, the registration as OCI cardholder shall be cancelled. The person will also be blacklisted thereby banning his or her future entry into India.

The 38-year-old writer is the son of late Pakistani politician Salmaan Taseer and Indian journalist Tavleen Singh.

The spokesperson also denied that the government had been considering revoking Taseer's OCI card after he wrote an article in the Time magazine, which was critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the news was a “complete misrepresentation and is devoid of any facts”.

Reacting to the home ministry statement, Taseer wrote on Twitter that he was not given 21 days to reply to the ministry notice but just 24 hours.

“This is untrue. Here is the Consul General's acknowledgement of my reply. I was given not the full 21 days, but rather 24 hours to reply. I've heard nothing from the ministry since,” he said.