In Indian-run Kashmir, Pakistani women without a country yearn for a homeland they can’t visit

Misbah Mushtaq, 30, came to Handwara town in the disputed area from Pakistan in 2015 with her husband, a former Kashmiri militant who crossed the border for weapons training in the early 1990s when an insurgency erupted in the Himalayan region.

India and Pakistan have clashed over control of Kashmir for decades, with three wars fought over the region. Like Misbah’s husband, many other Kashmiri youths also received weapons training after moving to Pakistan during the insurgency. Some militants did not return and settled in Pakistan, marrying locals.

In 2010, Indian officials in Jammu and Kashmir launched a rehabilitation policy for Kashmiri militants in Pakistan who had given up insurgent activities and were willing to return.

The scheme did not succeed as intended, however. The returning militants struggled to secure employment, their children faced difficulties gaining admission to schools, and Pakistani women were not permitted to return to their homeland, nor could they gain Indian citizenship.

Islamabad has said on several occasions that it is willing to take back the Pakistani women. The Pakistani embassy in India has also written to local authorities to allow these women to visit their old homes.

Activists and human rights groups have called the law discriminatory and criticised New Delhi for targeting one religion.

Misbah said economic hardships, and more importantly the longing to see her family, made her life “miserable” in Indian-administered Kashmir.

“My life is ruined here. All I want from the government is to deport me back. I will never return,” she told This Week in Asia, underlining her growing frustration.

When Misbah, who has a seven-year-old child, and the other Pakistani women who married Kashmiri militants