After 24 years of struggle, Nida and Mahrukh Naseem, born in Pakistan's Karachi and living in India since 1995, were finally granted Indian citizenship on March 23, 2019. The two women - Nida and Mahrukh Naseem - on Tuesday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for granting them Indian citizenship and said they will never forget the date.

"I want to thank PM Modi. When we went to the PMO, the people heard us and asked us to go back home and that it was now their responsibility to get them Indian citizenship," Nida Naseem said.

Nida and Mahrukh Naseem's parents got married in 1989. Mahrukh was born in 1991 and Nida was born in 1995. Their father is an Indian citizen, while their mother was a Pakistani citizen. Their mother was granted Indian citizenship in 2007. However, the two women, who have been living in India for the last 24 years, continued to face problems.

Their father, Naseem Akhtar, made a number of appeals and sent applications for 24 years but did not get any help. When PM Modi opened a 'mini PMO' in Varanasi after winning the Lok Sabha seat in 2014, Naseem Akhtar appealed there for help.

In 2019, the government finally announced that the two women will be granted Indian citizenship. Both the sisters have thanked PM Narendra Modi for his help.

Speaking to a media channel, Mahrukh Naseem said, "Since my mother was a Pakistani, we faced issues related to our nationality. PM Modi won from Varanasi and he heard our matter really well. He did not ask us to come another time but took instant action. We finally received our citizenship certificate on March 23."

Nida Naseem said, "I never felt like an outsider here. But any legal work would require us to write our nationality and we had to write 'Pakistani'. It was really problematic for me in the sense that I was living in India, I studied here but my nationality was Pakistani. After PM Modi came to power, we had a hope that our work will be done. We cannot forget March 23. We were so happy."

In April, PM Modi's personal intervention had led to the rescue of an Indian Muslim woman who had been held captive and tortured in Somalia by her in-laws since July 2018. The 31-year-old woman, Afreen Begum, was rescued from her captivity at Mogadishu in Somalia on March 28.