Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Harsh Sanghavi handed Indian citizenship certificates to 158 refugees at a ceremony in Ahmedabad on Tuesday 13 October 2026. The event was organised by the Ahmedabad district administration at the auditorium of the SAL Institute of Technology and Engineering in Sola, ETV Bharat reported.
Of the 158 beneficiaries, 126 received citizenship under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, or CAA, and 32 were registered through the district Collector’s office. The recipients included members of minority communities who had faced religious persecution in Pakistan and then settled in India, according to ANI and ETV Bharat. Sanghavi referred to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain and Parsi families from Pakistan.
Sanghavi said: “Our country and state are committed to supporting those in distress.” He credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for helping persecuted communities to begin new lives in India. Minister of State for Urban Development Darshna Vaghela spoke about access to citizenship for people from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, and MLA Payal Kukrani urged the beneficiaries to uphold national unity. Beneficiaries including Narendra Kumar, Shravan Kumar and Shardadevi expressed their gratitude, the report said.
The numbers fit a pattern in Ahmedabad. According to the report, between 2017 and 2025 the Ahmedabad district issued citizenship certificates to more than 1,200 applicants under Sections 5 and 6 of the Citizenship Act, 1955. Those two sections cover citizenship by registration and by naturalisation, the routes through which long-term residents from neighbouring countries can apply. The latest batch of 158 therefore represents a significant share of the district’s total over nearly a decade.
The CAA, passed by Parliament in 2019, offers a path to citizenship for members of six minority communities, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians, who came from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan before a cut-off date. It has been controversial, with critics arguing that it leaves out Muslims and others, and the government saying that it is meant for people persecuted on religious grounds. The reports reviewed here do not discuss that debate, and IndiaX24 notes it only as background.
The split is simple to calculate. The 126 beneficiaries under the CAA make up about 80 percent of the 158, and the 32 registered through the Collector’s office about 20 percent, by IndiaX24’s arithmetic. The reports reviewed do not give the ages, occupations or districts of origin of the 158 recipients, or the number of applications still pending in Gujarat, so the full picture of how many people are waiting for certificates cannot be drawn from them.
The ceremony took place ahead of Diwali, which social media outlet Social News XYZ highlighted in its headline. For the families concerned, the certificate gives access to rights such as voting, property and government jobs that were not available to them as refugees or long-term visa holders. IndiaX24 will report on further certificate distribution events and on any change in the number of applications pending in Gujarat. The ceremony was reported by both ANI and ETV Bharat, whose accounts agree on the numbers.
Featured image: The Sabarmati Riverfront in Ahmedabad, Gujarat (file photo, 2016). Photo by Emmanuel DYAN, licensed under CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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