PESHAWAR, Feb 24: Many members of the Pakistan-India Friendship Forum for Peace and Democracy could not leave for India for a joint convention due to refusal of visas to them.
Members of the forum said that various academicians, politicians, women, activists of NGOs and students were denied visa by the Indian High Commission. The three-day joint convention will be held in Delhi from Feb 25 to 27. A large number of people are to participate in the moot, which will mark the tenth year of the establishment of the forum.
About 70 members from the NWFP left Peshawar on Wednesday night for Lahore for their onward journey to India. A total of 325 members from Punjab will attend the convention.
A teacher of the Peshawar University said the forum had started its activities at a time when the two governments and people were averse to any sort of people-to-people diplomacy.
He added that the activities of the forum were criticized during those hard times but they continued their struggle for removing misunderstandings between the peoples of the two countries.
He regretted that despite those efforts, the members of the forum were denied visas. Irate members of the NWFP chapter of the forum also held some central office holders responsible for the problem, stating that the rules of the forum had been violated when acquiring visas for the members.
One member said that under the procedure more visas were acquired for the chapter which had more membership. He added that the NWFP chapter was the most active, and its membership larger than that of Punjab, still only 70 persons were provided visas as compared to 325 of Punjab.
A girl student said she had also been denied visa along with many other students. In some cases, visa was granted to a member but his or her close relative like spouse or children were denied it, forcing the former not to proceed to India, another member claimed.
He said that some central office-bearers of the forum facilitated the provision of visa by receiving passports from all aspiring members for onward submission to the Indian High Commission. However, he added, mostly the members from Punjab were granted visas. Another interesting point, he said, was that only seven-day visa was given to a majority of visitors and that, too, only of New Delhi.
