Pakistan on Saturday claimed that Sushma Swaraj’s Ministryt has denied visas to nearly 200 pilgrims who wanted to visit the country to participate in the death anniversary ceremony of Hazrat Khawaja Nizamuddin Auliya.
The Foreign Office said in a statement that “Pakistan regrets the last minute postponement and non-issuance of visas by India” for the visit of 192 devotees to participate in the Urs ceremony (death anniversary) in New Delhi from January 1-8.
“As a result of this Indian decision, the Pakistani Zaireen (devotees) would be deprived of the opportunity to participate in the Urs, which is of special significance,” the statement said.
The visit was to take place under the provisions of the 1974 Pakistan-India Protocol on Visits to Religious Shrines and is an annual feature. “This is unfortunate and runs counter to the letter and spirit of the 1974 Protocol and objective of people-to-people contacts,” it said
The statement said that besides being violative of the bilateral Protocol, and the basic human right to religious freedom, such measures also undermined the efforts aimed at improving the environment, increasing people-to-people contacts and normalising relations between the two countries.
“It is ironic that this was done on the occasion of Urs of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya who was a symbol of bringing communities closer to each other,” the FO added
Earlier, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj today said that four Indians, who were in the custody of Nigerian authorities, have been released following the intervention of the Indian high commissioner there.
Two of the four Indians had earlier taken to Twitter seeking Ms Swaraj’s intervention for their release. One of them, Viyas Yadav, had said that they were caught by the Nigerian authorities and were kept in Lagos for the past three months.
“I am happy to inform that we have secured the return of Capt Atul Sharma, Sudhir Kumar, Balvinder Singh and Viyas Yadav to India. I appreciate the efforts of B N Reddy, Indian High Commissioner in Nigeria. We thank Nigerian authorities for their help,” Ms Swaraj tweeted.
According to reports, the four Indians were on board a merchant vessel and were caught by the authorities there as they were looking for the ship for an earlier crime.
Mr Sharma and Mr Kumar are from Himachal Pradesh.
