99 Pak Hindus get help from local community, gurdwaras to stay afloat

Manmeet Singh Gill

Tribune News Service

Attari (Amritsar), October 1

If it had not been for the local community and gurdwaras, the 99 Hindu-Pakistani nationals, including 47 children, stranded at Attari without food, shelter and enough money would have literally experienced hell in the past one week. All are waiting to cross over to Pakistan since September 23.

Camping at a parking lot near the International Check Post (ICP), the group caught the attention of Saurab and Mandeep, who run a sweet shop nearby.

“It had already been 24 hours and none of them had hardly purchased any food or cooked anything. It seemed odd as the group has 47 children under the age of 10 years. They seemed poor but we had no idea that they were so broke,” said Saurab.

Next, the duo discussed the issue with others at the village. “It was already 5 pm. We decided that women would make chapattis and men would cook daal. By 6.30 pm, we had 800 chapattis — much more than we needed,” said Jodhbir Singh, a former panchayat member from Attari.

“Ever since that evening, the residents are providing three meals, tea and medicines to them. Another resident of the village purchased 100 steel bowls for them as they had no utensils. Some have given clothes to the children,” said Jasbir Singh Sahoora, president, Ex-serviceman Sainik Welfare Society.

The residents have also convinced the parking contractor to open toilets for them. Instead of sleeping in the open, like they did on the first day, they now use the sheds of nearby dhabas.

As the group has at least six children below the age of six months (who were born in India), the youth from Rorawala village give them 10 litre milk every day. “The milk is delivered to Saurab’s shop, who keeps it refrigerated and gives it to children’s mothers whenever they ask for it,” said Jaswinder Singh, another ex-serviceman.

While most of them are from Sanghar district of Sindh province, a few of them are from West Punjab. A few of them had come to India for “Ganga Snan” before the lockdown was announced in March last year and were stranded. There are others, too, who came in 2017 and later on the same pretext overstayed their visa.

Kewal Das, a member of the group, said all of them had been staying in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. “The authorities here say that we require permission from the Jodhpur police for which we have applied now,” said Mohan, who had come to India in 2018.

Maghia Ram from Rahim Yar Khan district of West Punjab said: “We request the officials concerned to expedite the process of sending us home as soon as possible.”