The Delhi Government has decided to “relax” its rules and grant admission in its school to Madhu, a Pakistani migrant girl, who has been struggling to secure admission due to lack of required documents. The decision comes after Union External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj took note of the reports of Madhu’s struggle to secure admission and raised the issue with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. According to 16-year-old Madhu, she had come to India with her mother, siblings, her uncle and cousins two years ago after they fled religious persecution in Pakistan’s Punjab province.
After making rounds of the Delhi Government, co-ed senior secondary school in Sanjay Colony where authorities refused to enrol her in ninth standard as she does not have the necessary documents required to complete the formalities. The migrant girl also wrote to Kejriwal seeking intervention. Approving the request for her admission, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said, “due to peculiar circumstances, the girl is not in possession of any school leaving certificate or date of birth certificate. She wants to study and on humanitarian grounds it is my considered opinion that we need to walk extra mile to accommodate her”.
“To accommodate Madhu’s request, the Government can consider relaxing whatever rules and regulations, if they come in way of her joining our school,” Sisodia, who is also the Education Minister, said in an official order.
“Accordingly admission to Madhu may immediately be provided at any of our Government schools located in Sanjay Colony, Bhati Mines, Fatehpur Beri, New Delhi. She would also be given necessary books and uniform and we may facilitate whatever is required for the girl to study in our school,” the order further added.
The school has refused to enrol her in Class IX as she does not have the necessary documents required to complete the formalities.
According to reports, Madhu had come to India with her mother, siblings, her uncle and cousins two years ago after they fled religious persecution in Pakistan’s Punjab. Her father passed away long ago. She was studying in Class X in Pakistan at the time they decided to move to India. Her life as a student in Pakistan was no normal affair. “In school, she felt unsafe and humiliated. Being a Hindu, she was not allowed to use glass to drink water and would rather use her hands for the purpose. Her teachers maintained distance from her,” said her uncle Jevar who used to run a brick kiln in Pakistan.
However, this isn’t the first time this year that Swaraj has personally intervened to help a Pakistani Hindu immigrant in distress. In May, Swaraj helped 17-year old Mashal Maheshwari — another refugee from religious persecution — gain admission into a medical college after watching her interview on television.