Maha Shivaratri: 68 pilgrims denied visas

Pakistan’s High Commission in India has refused to grant visas to 68 Indian Hindu pilgrims, who were part of the group that was to visit Pakistan to celebrate Maha Shivaratri at the Katasraj cluster of temples in Chakwal district, the Times of India reported on Wednesday.

A day earlier, a group of 200 pilgrims arrived in Pakistan to participate in the religious festival. “It is unfortunate that our visas have been rejected, we will take up the issue with the Pakistani authorities,” Master Mohan Lal, former Punjab transport minister and jatha leader, told the Times of India.

Mohan Lal said that they not only wanted more visas for Hindu pilgrims but also frequent travel to Hindu shrines in Pakistan. In the recent past, 14 different Hindu organisations of Punjab, Haryana and Delhi held a meeting to contemplate over giving a memorandum to New Delhi for increasing quota of Hindu pilgrims from 200 to 2,000, and four pilgrimages to Pakistan instead of two.

The head of Sanatan Dharam Pratinidhi Sabha in Delhi, Indermohan Goswami, regretted that Pakistan’s High Commission hadn’t entertain their passports. He said that the security of Hindu pilgrims was one of the most important aspects of their visit to Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 27^th, 2014.