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Lawyer refuses to give up hope for return of Afghan husband to India
For Chandigarh based lawyer Surinder Pal Kaur, love knows no boundaries. Married in 2018 to an Afghanistan national who was deported to his country in 2019, she’s leaving no stone unturned to ensure his return to India
Chandigarh: It has all the ingredients of a Bollywood potboiler, a dashing young Afghan and a pretty young woman who first spotted each other in Panjab University (PU) but fell in love and married when he was in prison and serving a sentence for murder.
Today, the wife is alone in India seeking help from all quarters, including the home ministry, to get her husband back from Aghanistan, where he has been deported.
As protests and debates continue over the Citizenship Amendment Act, here’s a couple that wants to be together in this country. For Surinder Pal (SP) Kaur, a lawyer practising in the district courts for the last five, nothing is stronger than love. It’s something that has been missing in her life since she lost her mother at the age of three and was left with her grandparents after her father settled abroad.
Hoshiarpur-born Surinder had started working when she met Ehsanullah at a Christmas party in PU. She found him to be an intelligent man who excelled in studies as well as politics, being the joint secretary of the Students Organisation of Panjab University.
A year later, in 2016, Surinder was shocked to see him in court one day. “He was in the witness box as an accused in a murder case, someone who had murdered his friend. I did not believe it,” she says.
In 2017, when Ehsanullah was awarded a life term by the sessions judge, Surinder helped him move an appeal in the Punjab and Haryana high court (HC).
Soon, her prison visits became a routine affair and slowly, from the case, their conversations moved to more personal matters.
Love struck a little later. Passing the visiting room one day she heard Ehsanullah laughing as he met his family. “I couldn’t forget that laughter. I fell in love with him,” she smiles.
The next month, he proposed to her. “In the two five-minute calls that he was allowed every week, he started addressing me as Hayat - a new life,” she adds.
They were married on October 15, 2018. “I reached the mosque an hour early and felt awkward sitting alone in my bridal dress on a bench. Ehsanullah arrived later under tight police security, wearing a Pathani suit with a scarf across his shoulder.
Though he was taken back to prison after the ceremony was over, Surinder’s happiness was undiminished. “That moment, when I was sitting next to him legally as his wife, was the best in my life,” she beams.
However, as news of her marriage spread, people’s behaviour changed. Many stopped talking to her. “I stopped getting work,” says Surinder, unable to understand how her personal decision could affect her professional life.
There were more worries about HC’s pending decision on Ehsanullah’s appeal.
The New Year, January 2019, however , brought good news. The HC modified the district court’s order and convicted him of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and the sentence was commuted to five years. Soon, because of good conduct, he got a remission of 1.5 years and was released on October 2 this year.
It happened to be Surinder’s birthday. But she could only meet him for 30 minutes before he was sent out of the country.
“I told him that I will never give up,” she says.
The home ministry has yet to respond to her plea.
Both are writing about their lives, living for the day when they’ll be together.
