Pak authorities delay travel permits for visit to PoK
Shariq Majeed
Tribune News Service

Mendhar (Poonch), July 17
Syed Khaliq Hussain Shah (62) of the Kalaban area here is a worried man. Almost after three years, Shah, a priest at the shrine of Chote Shah, applied for a permit to travel across to the Chatterpari area in Mirpur of occupied Kashmir (PoK) on the cross- Line of Control (LoC) Poonch-Rawlakote bus service to meet his ailing elder brother having a heart problem. He is yet to get the same.

“I got separated from my elder brother, Syed Walayat Hussain Shah, during the 1965 war. A few years ago, after a gap of more than 40 years, we met again when he came to India on a travel permit which, according to him, he got in just a year’s time. I too applied for a permit almost three years ago to see him there, since he is suffering from a heart problem and has survived a few mild heart attacks in the recent past, but I am not getting the same. His family members tell me that he might not survive for long but since I am not getting permit to travel across to PoK, I may not see him ever,” says Khaliq. “Please highlight my case so that the government is forced to give me a permit to travel across to meet my dying brother. If I get the permit I will be indebted to the media.”

Khaliq is not the only one who is waiting for a permit to travel across on the cross- LoC Poonch-Rawlakote bus.Intelligence sources assert that the number is more than 3,500. They added that though the Indian authorities were not taking much time to give the mandatory clearance to the divided family members from PoK to travel across to India on the cross- LoC bus, the Pakistan Ministry of Home Affairs was taking a long time, ranging from a year to four years, to give clearance to Indian citizens.

The Intelligence sources further said even the post 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, the Indian authorities continued to give compulsory clearance to Pakistani citizens to travel to India to meet their family members here keeping the promise of re-uniting divided family members. Ironically, though initially the Pakistani authorities gave the permits, from March 2009 they didn’t give mandatory clearance to any Indian citizen to travel across till June 26. They added that the Pakistani Ministry of Home Affairs unnecessarily delayed statutory clearance to Indian citizens as compared to the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs which didn’t take much time for the same.

A senior officer in the district administration here confirming that Pakistan’s Ministry of Home Affairs normally took a lot of time to give the mandatory clearance to Indian citizens, said following the Mumabi terror attacks it even stopped giving permission to Indian citizens for some months from March 2009 till June-end.