NEW DELHI: Minority refugees from Bangladesh and Pakistan can stay in India even after expiry of their visas, based on humanitarian grounds , according to a decision taken by the Modi government .

"The central government has decided, on humanitarian considerations, to exempt Bangladeshi and Pakistani nationals belonging to minority communities who have entered India on or before December 31, 2014, in respect of their entry and stay in India without proper documents or after the expiry of relevant documents," said a press release put out by the home ministry on Monday.

The decision has been taken under Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920 and Foreigners Act, 1946, and notified in the Official Gazette.

As per reports with the government of India, a number of Bangladeshi and Pakistani nationals belonging to minority communities in their respective countries, such as Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Parsis and Buddhists, have taken shelter in India fearing religious persecution back home.

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They entered India without any valid document like passport and or any other travel document. Those who did enter on a valid document, have complained that the validity of such document has expired.

The issue of regularisation of entry and stay of such Bangladeshi and Pakistani nationals in India has been under consideration of the central government for some time now.

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Officials put the figure of Hindu and Sikh refugees from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, living in India at around 2 lakh.

Ever since Narendra Modi government came to power in May last year, several steps including issuance of Long Term Visa (LTV) for these refugees have been initiated.

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In November last year, home minister Rajnath Singh had approved a number of steps to ease grant of citizenship to such refugees which included manual acceptance of applications for citizenship, consideration of an affidavit filed before the authority in return for citizenship renunciation certificate and permission to the children of such refugees, who entered India, on the basis of their parents' passport, to apply for Indian citizenship without a passport.

In April this year, the Union Home Ministry rolled out an online system for LTV applications and for their processing by various security agencies.