New Delhi, March 28

A “blacklist” maintained by the Central government imposing visa restrictions on Sikhs settled abroad has been pruned, reportedly following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention.

His “intervention” came after Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal wrote a letter urging him to remove names of 36 Sikhs settled overseas from the “secret blacklist”. Some names have been removed after detailed discussions among various stakeholders, sources said.

The “blacklist”, prepared at different levels by security agencies, has been maintained on mostly Indian-origin people allegedly involved in subversive or anti-India activities abroad.

Such people are barred from visiting India.

Badal had urged Modi after he became Prime Minister in 2014 to direct the Home Ministry to evolve a mechanism for a regular review of all such cases. Badal had said he wanted removal of the names of persons from the list against whom no cases or legal proceedings were pending.

Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal too had written to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to review the “blacklist”.

A delegation of British Sikhs too had urged Modi for removing the names of Sikh individuals from the list.

During the 1980s and 1990s, a large number of Sikh families had migrated to the US, Canada, UK, Germany and other countries seeking political asylum.

Many asylum seekers were booked in India and have not been allowed to visit India in the past decades. — PTI