Notwithstanding Pakistan's various measures to improve relations with India including release of hundreds of Indian prisoners and the condemned spy Kashmir Singh, India has recently arrested about 400 Pakistani while returning home on the charge of tempering visas, in what appeared to be a serious disregard to Pakistan's goodwill gestures.
As per details, several Pakistani families, who were on the way back home after visiting their relatives in India especially in Gujrat province on valid travel documents issued by the Indian High Commission, were arrested by Indian authorities and cases have been initiated against them.
The majority of detained families belong to poor and labour class, who meet their end by labouring on daily wages basis at Karachi Port and living in Kalri, Lyari, Khokhrapar, Malir and Keamari areas.
Despite fulfilling all requisites of immigration by the detainees to undertake journey to India, they have been arrested at Atari check post and Monabao check post on charges of visa tempering by Indian authorities, when they were returning home.
Indian border forces also seized their passports, luggage and other documents and sent them to Amritsar and Jodhpur district jails. When contacted Dawood Mendha, Chairman Kutchi Release Committee, he said that Indian border forces arrested first Pakistani on April 19, 2008 at Atari check post. He said that four persons were detained at Atari check post while rest of them were arrested at Monabao check post.
The basic motive to open these routes was to facilitate visitors by minimising travel distance, however Pakistanis face immense problems at these routes during their journey to India as they are being maltreated by Indian border forces causing disenchantment to them, he maintained.
He said that majority of the Pakistani visitors, who travelled through these routes, submitted requisitions for 60 days visa to visit Gujrat, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Jaitpur, Kutch and Mumbai. But Indian High Commission issued visas only for 45days to Mumbai from January and asked them to reapply in case of visiting more places.
On this, almost every detained families reapplied for allowing visit to more places, he said and added that in response to this Indian High Commission resorted to obsolete manual procedure for extending their visas.
To a question, he termed Indian allegation baseless, saying that if all detained persons tempered visas then why they were not stopped when they arrived at boarder to enter India.
Terming the allegation rubbish he said those whom visas were extended and were on the way back home after completing their tour were arrested. When contacted Indian High Commissioner, Satiya Bratapal avoided commenting on the issues and asked this scribe to contact Sanjay Mathur of the high commission regarding the matter. However, when Sanjay Mathur was contacted he outrightly refused to comment on the matter.
Comments
Comments are closed.