South’s Teresa can stay on

Bangalore, July 26: The Union home ministry intervened today to allow a British-born nun working among leprosy patients here to stay on as long as she wanted to, reversing an earlier order that gave her seven days to pack up and leave.

Sister Jacqueline Jean McEwan, 63, who was given a month’s reprieve hours before catching a flight to London yesterday, was allowed to continue her work with an indefinite extension of her residence visa.

“This is a real miracle,” Sister Jean, who has been working in Bangalore with the city-based charitable organisation Somanahalli Society, told The Telegraph today. “I am so overjoyed that I can’t express my feelings in words.”

A statement issued by the Somanahalli Society said Union home minister P. Chidambaram had admitted that the notice of exit given to Sister Jean was a “mistake” on the part of the Foreigner Regional Registration Office.

The nun, who first came to India in 1982 as a social worker, has been renewing her visa every year until a policeman turned up at her door recently to serve the notice asking her to leave the country in seven days that ended yesterday.

Around 2pm yesterday, as she was about to leave for the airport, she received a phone call from the society director that she had been given a one-month reprieve.

Now, after the indefinite extension of her residence visa, Sister Jean, lovingly called Mother Teresa of Somanahalli, can stay on in the country as long as she wants to.

It was not immediately clear if the nun has to renew her visa every year as she has been doing for the past 29 years.

Since the notice of exit, Sister Jean has been receiving support from people from all walks of life. “Even people on the streets told me they were praying for the extension of my visa,” she said, adding that she wanted to continue her work among leprosy patients. She also visits a couple of slums in the city to tend to cancer patients.

Father George Kannamthanam, the director of Somanahalli Society, expressed appreciation for the support received from the home minister and his office. “This decision will go a long way in helping the patients she takes care of,” he said.