The Centre is acting tough with Kashmir's separatist leaders by taking on their foreigner wives, refusing them to stay with their husbands in Jammu and Kashmir [Images].

The American wife of moderate Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umer Farooq was slapped with a notice to leave India within 10 days while the Pakistani wife of People's Conference chief Sajjad Gani Lone has been refused visa by the Indian High Commission in Islamabad [Images] to visit her husband.

Mirwaiz's wife, Sheeba Masoodi, however, secured a temporary stay from the Jammu and Kashmir High Court on Friday on notice served by the Foreign Registration Office (FRO), rejecting her application to extend her visa on the ground that her request for extension of visa was "not recommended" by the state government.

She said in her petition that she was entitled to stay in Srinagar [Images] as she had married a bona-fide Kashmir national. Staying the FRO's order, Justice Nissar Ahmad Kakroo issued notice to the state government and other respondents to file their objections within 15 days.

Sheeba termed the expulsion order of FRO that works under the security agencies as arbitrary since her case was still pending before the Ministries of Home Affairs and External Affairs.

An American national by birth, Sheeba is born to a Kashmiri doctor working in the United States who still holds an Indian passport and has applied for dual citizenship.

In her petition, she asserted that she was a "permanent" resident of Jammu and Kashmir as she was born to Kashmiri parents and her birth in the US had been reported to the Indian consulate as required under law for granting citizenship.