Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Harsh Sanghavi on Thursday awarded 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 Act, 2019 (CAA) in Ahmedabad and Bhubaneswar.
In Gujarat, 73 others were given certificates as they applied for them at the Ahmedabad district collectorate, PTI reported citing officials.
Expressing gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union 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 the updated citizenship rules were designed to ensure fair recognition to those who sought refuge in India.
“Muskuraiye, aap ab Bharat ke nagrik hain (smile, you are citizens of India now),” 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 were granted Indian citizenship. Many of them have struggled for decades, some since the 1950s, facing persecution and lengthy legal battles. They endured hardship and lack of support, living in fear. They express their gratitude to the Prime Minister that these C195 Indian citizens finally they don’t get.”
Dr. Maheshkumar Purohit, a gynecologist who came to India in 1956, spoke about his decades-long journey to citizenship, the report said. He discovered that he was not officially recognized as an Indian citizen until he applied for a passport. After many attempts, he finally secured citizenship and received a passport in April 2025 that allowed him to visit his daughter abroad, according to the CAA. He described the moment as deeply emotional and long overdue.
Engineer Pooja Abhimanyu said that for her the certificate was much more than just an official document.
Indian citizenship distributed in Odisha
Meanwhile, the Directorate of Census in Urida 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 holy legislation has provided a ray of hope and reassurance for minorities persecuted for years.”
Read also | “Intellectuals when they become terrorists…”: Police on the 2020 Delhi riots case
Majhi told reporters, “Today, for the first time in Odisha, under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019, 35 people living in Nabarangpur district of Odisha have been given citizenship certificates… These people who migrated from Bangladesh have been given citizenship certificates.
Majhi stated that 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 welcomes them as citizens. Majhi also noted that while people of any other religion facing persecution abroad can find refuge in many countries, Hindus persecuted elsewhere have nowhere to turn but India.
Read also | How Bangladesh Crisis Raises CAA Debate in India. 5 points
He asked 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.
