Aatish Taseer loses citizenship status for concealing information

New Delhi, Nov 08: The Overseas Citizenship of India (OIC) status of writer and journalist Aatish Taseer has been revoked for concealing information.

"Mr. Aatish Ali Taseer becomes ineligible to hold an OCI card, as per the Citizenship Act, 1955. He has clearly not complied with very basic requirements and hidden information," a tweet by the MHA spokesperson read.

The MHA said that he had concealed the fact that his father was a Pakistani national. The OCI card allows foreign citizens of Indian origin to work indefinitely and enter India without a visa. However this is not applicable for Bangladesh and Pakistan.

The MHA also noted that Taseer had been accorded an opportunity to represent, but he had failed to do so. Taseer in a tweet said that the allegations of him not responding were not true.

"This is untrue. Here is the Consul General's acknowledgment of my reply. I was given not the full 21 days, but rather 24 hours to reply. I've heard nothing from the ministry since," he said in a tweet.

It may be recalled that Taseer had done the cover story for the Time Magazine recently in which he had called Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the divider in chief.