Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Harsh Sanghavi on Thursday granted Indian citizenship certificates to 122 migrants from Pakistan, while Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi distributed certificates to 35 people from Bangladesh under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA) in Ahmedabad and Bhubaneswar respectively. In Gujarat, 73 others were handed certificates for applying for them at the Ahmedabad district collector’s office, according to PTI quoting officials. Expressing gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for implementing the CAA, Sanghavi stressed that minorities in Pakistan and neighboring countries have long faced hardships and threats to their security. He said that the updated citizenship rules were designed to give fair recognition to those who sought refuge in India. “Muskuraiye, aap ab Bhaarat ke nagrik hain (Smile, you are now citizens of India),” he told the recipients, some of whom shared their emotions during the event. Sanghavi said: “Today, 195 Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and Jain refugees from Pakistan have been granted Indian citizenship. Many of them have struggled for decades, some since the 1950s, facing persecution and lengthy legal battles. They have endured hardships and lack of support, living in fear of the Minister, without gratitude to the Modi. 195 individuals to finally receive Indian citizenship.” Dr. Maheshkumar Purohit, a gynecologist who came to India in 1956, spoke about his decades-long road to citizenship, the report said. He discovered that he was not officially recognized as an Indian citizen just when he applied for a passport. After many attempts, he finally obtained citizenship, and under the CAA in April 2025 received a passport that enabled him to visit his daughter abroad. He describes the moment as deeply emotional and long overdue. Engineer Pooja Abhimanyu said that the certificate represents much more to her than just an official document. Indian citizenship spread in Odisha Meanwhile, the Odisha Census Directorate and the Union Ministry of Home Affairs organized a special event where Majhi said that India’s “traditional values of humanity and asylum” had been revived by the process initiated by Prime Minister Modi, adding: “This sacred legislation has provided a ray of hope and reassurance to minorities for years.” Majhi told reporters, “Today, for the first time in Odisha, based on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019, citizenship certificates were given to 35 people living in Nabarangpur district of Odisha… These people who migrated from Bangladesh were given citizenship certificates.” Majhi stated that the 35 people are now citizens of India and expressed that they are part of the country’s future. He emphasized that their safety, respect and progress are the responsibility and duty of the state, and he welcomed them as citizens. Majhi also noted that while people of any other religion facing persecution abroad could find refuge in many countries, Hindus persecuted elsewhere had nowhere to go but India. He questioned where they would go if India did not have laws to protect them. Bapin Mirda, who arrived from Bangladesh in 1998 and received Indian citizenship on Thursday, said the certificate gave him a new sense of identity.
