Visit to PoK
Pak not clearing travel permits
Shariq Majeed
Tribune News Service

Rajouri, April 17
For seventh consecutive week in a row this week , not a single person could get a permit to visit occupied Kashmir (PoK) as Pakistan’s ministry of home affairs allegedly didn’t give the mandatory clearance for travel documents of anyone.

Three Indian visitors who got documents more than three months ago and couldn’t travel to PoK earlier due to some reasons, had gone to PoK from Poonch last week by the weekly Poonch-Rawalkote cross- LoC bus.

However,36 persons from PoK travelled to Poonch by the cross LoC bus on Monday. On March 30, 56 persons came to India from PoK to meet their family members. On April 6, there were 45 visitors from PoK to Poonch.

During five consecutive weeks in March, only nine persons from India, who had been issued travel documents a few months ago and somehow couldn’t travel to PoK due to one reason or the other, travelled to PoK from Poonch on the cross LoC bus. No one from India was issued permit in March and the trend continues even this month.

Even as the mandatory permission is not being given to the Indian visitors, members of the divided families here who have applied for travel permits fear that the bus service may be stopped.

“This is no just ordinary bus service as it unites members of the divided families. The Pakistani authorities should take this issue seriously and issue the mandatory clearance at the earliest so that we can travel across”, said Muhammad Razzak of Mendhar, who applied for a travel permit two years ago.

A senior officer in the Poonch district administration , who facilitates the crossing over at the cross- LOC point of Chakkan Da Bagh on the Poonch- Rawalkote road, said: “We took up the matter with the Pakistani authorities. They told us that internal problems in Pakistan have severely affected the functioning of various government departments. This has resulted in the Pakistani authorities’ failure to give clearance to aspiring Indian visitors to the PoK”.