After 40 years in India, he faces jail for overstay

[The_Patriot]

After 40 years in India, he faces jail for overstay

Kenya-born Ajay Boury has been a resident of Bangalore for four decades. Officials at the foreigners regional registration office now say they cannot extend his residence permit as his wife has lodged a police complaint against him. He thus faces a five-year jail term if he stays in the country beyond December 31

If ever Steven Spielberg decides on a sequel to The Terminal, he need look no further than Bangalorean Ajay Boury. Fifty-year-old Boury once experienced the same surrealistic ordeal that Tom Hank’s character Victor Navorski does in the movie — with the difference that there was no romantically-challenged stewardess (Catherine Zeta-Jones) to lighten his life! Boury had to stay put for four days in Singapore’s Changi airport in the 1980s as the travel papers issued to him by the Indian government labelled him ‘stateless’.

More than 20 years, a wife and two children later, he faces a ‘neither here nor there’ situation all over again. Speaking to Bangalore Mirror, he said he is allowed to stay legally in the country till December 31, but the foreigners regional registration office (FRRO) in Bangalore has told him they cannot consider an extension as his wife has filed a complaint of domestic violence against him. There is thus a strong possibility of his being arrested for overstaying, come January 1 next year.

Despite being an Indian-origin Punjabi, Kenya-born Boury is technically a foreigner. In 1970, when a wave of nationalism was sweeping Kenya, nine-year-old Ajay moved with his parents, grandfather and two brothers to India. They had the option of settling down in the UK but did not take it. His parents surrendered their British passports and settled down in Bangalore, where they started a business. Ajay and his brothers’ names were mentioned in the British passport of their mother, who died in 2002.

Ajay did his schooling in Baldwin Boys’ and went on to Christ College. He is a member of the alumni associations of both. Boury’s first encounter with official red tape was in 1984, when it became mandatory for foreigners to register with the FRRO. His application for an Indian passport was rejected, and he fared no better applying for one from Kenya and then the UK. All he had were travel papers issued by the Indian government which mentioned his nationality as ‘stateless’.

It was during this period that he travelled to Singapore from (then) Madras. The authorities there did not permit him to take the flight to Hong Kong, and he was confined to the Changi airport premises for four days before he was put on a flight back to Madras. Thus, his travel documents showed him as flying out of Madras and arriving back at Madras, without showing where he actually went! The experience left a bad taste in his mouth. He redoubled his efforts to get a passport and managed to get a Kenyan one, which he used in his subsequent travels abroad.

Boury married a fellow-Punjabi in Bangalore in 1988 and the couple have two children. Since 1993, he has been given a residence permit every five years. But in 2008, the permit was not extended. Strangely, his brother who applied on the same day got an extension till January 6, 2013. Boury was lulled into complacence by officialspeak that there was nothing to worry about. “Everywhere I was told not to worry as I was staying in India for almost 40 years. I was also informed that I would not have any problem travelling abroad as I would be issued an exit visa and a “No Objection to Return to India” stamp on my passport. After this, I did not follow up the matter with the FRRO,” says Boury.


SHUTTLECOCK
In the meantime, differences with his wife were growing. His Kenyan passport went missing and he applied for, and obtained, a new one. “I also began to follow up on my residence permit. I went to the ministry of home affairs in New Delhi. They said they had not received my extension application. Ever since, I have been shuttling between the FRRO, Bangalore and MHA, foreigners division, New Delhi. Both are harassing me and passing the buck instead of sorting out my problem,” he says.

In July, the FRRO, Bangalore, gave him a one-line endorsement allowing him to stay till December 31. However, a source in the FRRO reportedly told him a further extension was not possible as “circumstances” had changed — a reference to the domestic violence complaint his wife filed against him recently. Without it, Boury cannot stay in India and faces arrest on January 1, 2012. He cannot even go out of the country as he will not get an exit visa because of the case against him. “I have no one in Kenya. I am an Indian and all the people I know are here in Bangalore.

Technically, if I overstay, I can be put in prison for five years. Since I am not getting an extension, the only road I am permitted to travel is to jail,” says Ajay. “What am I to do in these circumstances? What will happen to my 83-year-old father, who stays with me, if I am put in jail?” he asks.

The buck-passing on Boury’s case was evident in the responses of the FRRO and the jurisdictional police station. FRRO officials said their office does not decide on no-objections for extensions of stay. “It is for the police station concerned to recommend that,” they told this paper.

Pulikeshinagar police inspector Maheshwarappa said a complaint under section 498(A) of the IPC (domestic violence) had been filed against Boury. Station sources said, “When a criminal complaint is filed against any person, the records go online to the different crime record bureaus. Technically he can be arrested on January 1. The FRRO could have given him an extension. The police station only puts the details of criminal cases online and has nothing to do with stay extensions.”

A panic-stricken Boury says he does not have the margin of time to wait till his wife’s complaint against him is disposed of. “I have only 10 days left before going to jail,” he says plaintively.

Source

[MidriGeez]

lol Rejected by his country of origin... Im really starting to hate henood lately, they have this hidden hate for african wallahi, especially muslim africans.