But she was viewed sympathetically by senior officials in Jammu and Kashmir, including an old friend who had become the state’s leader. In July 1963, the government concluded that Mrs. Butt and her children should be allowed to legally remain in India on a year-to-year basis, “subject to good behavior,” but that they would not receive Indian citizenship. So their legal status was tenuous.

2) Why was she so well-connected politically?

Before Partition, Mrs. Butt and her husband had been active in Kashmiri politics, and had struck up a friendship with G.M. Sadiq, who later became the leader of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, said Iftikhar Sadiq, 52, the official’s grandson.

She continued her activism in Pakistan, where she argued for Kashmiri independence, and served as president of the All-Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, mentions her in a memoir as an activist who was particularly troublesome to Mr. Bogra, Pakistan’s third prime minister.

Mr. Nehru describes her as “a Kashmiri woman by the name of Bhat who did a lot of mischief.”

In 1954, she confronted Mr. Bogra at a public event in Karachi and argued with him about Kashmir. Family members said she was subsequently arrested and confined for six months to a mental hospital in Lahore. Some relatives said she received electroshock therapy there.

After she left Pakistan for Kashmir, she lived under the patronage of Mr. Sadiq, her old friend. “They used to be very close to the ‘who’s who’ who mattered here in the valley at that time,” his grandson said. “In those days, people used to really care about these bonds. They used to develop them into personal relationships — they would never get rid of them.”