Govt extends visa of Pak Hindu pilgrims by 15 days

Neeraj Bagga

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, February 16

The Union Government extended the stay of the visiting 142-member Hindu pilgrim group of Pakistan in India by 15 days.

As per their four-day visa, they were supposed to return to their country through the Attari-Wagah Joint Check Post today.

Mukesh Rana, leader of the visiting group of pilgrims, said: “Now the visa has permitted us to visit Delhi and Haridwar. Many devotees of the group will immerse ashes of their departed family members in the Ganga.”

BJP leaders and Congress MLA Raj Kumar Verka claimed credit for securing the extension of their visas. They will now be able to continue their pilgrimage to holy cities in India.

Jubilant pilgrims could not hold back their sentiments as they raised religious slogans as Verka delivered the communique to them at Durgiana Temple’s Dhanwant Kaur Dharmshala (inn). They have been putting up at the inn for the past four days after arriving in India.

Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh tweeted thanks to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj over the gesture. Verka claimed that the Chief Minister had assigned him the duty to take up the matter with the Foreign Affairs Ministry. He said that earlier Durgiana Committee president Ramesh Sharma took up the matter with the Chief Minister.

He said Indians and the Indian government always give the message of love and peace to Pakistanis and anticipated that the Pakistan government would also reciprocate in the same manner.

He said the Pakistan government must pursue humanitarian approach with the Indians locked up in their country’s prisons and exercise restraint along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir.

Later, members of the district unit of the BJP, led by former Local Bodies Minister Anil Joshi, thanked the Narendra Modi government for extending the visa. Flanked by members of the Pakistani pilgrims, he said some Congress leaders were trying to misguide public by staking false claim.