Aatish Taseer
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OCI status
Cancelled in 2019
Nov 8, 2019: The Times of India
Author Aatish Taseer’s Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) status was cancelled, following a statement by the home ministry that he had suppressed information that his late father was of Pakistani origin.
The home ministry statement came in the wake of reports that it was set to revoke Taseer’s OCI card and that the trigger for the action was an article critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi (titled ‘Divider in Chief ’) which Taseer had written for Time magazine in May. Later that month, after Modi returned to office, the magazine carried an article by another writer calling the PM a “unifier”.
Taseer’s father, Salman Taseer, was governor of Punjab (in Pakistan) and one of that country’s most high-profile politicians when he was assassinated by a bodyguard in 2011 for defending a Christian woman accused of blasphemy. His mother is Indian columnist Tavleen Singh.
In his book, ‘Stranger To History,’ published in 2007, Taseer wrote at length about his father and how his mother raised him as a single parent.
As social media erupted over the issue, Taseer disputed MHA’s claim that he had been given the opportunity to respond to the clarifications sought with regard to his submissions to the government. A couple of hours later, he put out a tweet saying he had been officially notified that his OCI card was cancelled.