Cricket: Pakistan-born Khawaja gets Indian visa
Cricket New South Wales said Khawaja was cleared to travel to India by the High Commission in Sydney early Wednesday, after a "stoppage" the 24-year-old player had claimed was due to his country of birth.
"We are delighted that this has been settled and we thank the Indian Consul-General, Mr Amit Dasgupta, for his prompt attention in resolving the matter," said Cricket NSW chairman Harry Harinath.
Khawaja is on the 20-man long list to represent NSW at the Twenty20 event and cricket officials said he could now join the squad if he is among the final 15 selected later this week.
The Champions League T20 is scheduled in India from September 23 through October 9.
The left-hander vented his anger about the delay to his visa on the social media site Twitter Tuesday, calling on Indian visa officials to "sort their issues out".
"Refusing to let me travel to India as an Australian, because I wasn't born here. Wow," Khawaja wrote.
In an exchange with his Portuguese-born New South Wales team-mate Moises Henriques, Khawaja said it "wasn't that I wasn't born here but where I was, brother".
Khawaja, the first Muslim to wear the baggy green for Australia and also a qualified pilot, made his Test debut for Australia in the fifth match of the Ashes series in Sydney in January and signed with Derbyshire later that month.
COMMENTS (26)
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@rock: Bharti is a proper word for an indian. It is also a female first name and also a family name. Bharti is the proper word for indian in some dialects of Hindi, in Urdu and Punjabi. Even punjabi and indian newspapers and tv channels in india use the word Bharti. Google and you will find many examples of the word Bharti used in the said context. A general rule of thumb in urdu is:
Punjab.....Punjabi Gujarat.....Gujarati. Hindustan.....Hindustani.... Pakistan....Pakistani.... Malabar......Malabari.... Bengal......Bengali.... BHARAT......BHARATI.....
@DarkStar(Karachi): Name of the country is India, hindustan, Bharat. People are known as Indians, hindustani, Bhartiya. Bharatis word does not exist. When you say bharati it is basically used as female name. bharatis does not mean people of India. To call people of india you have use word bharatiya. learn some basics. You even don't know how to call indians in local language. funny.
@Malay: Leave them they are very selective they don't want complete news. How will they bash India? Indian diplomats are doing great job after headley debacle. I hope they continue in all cases. Great job.
@Ranjit: mr ranjit, pls grow up. think, about futur and let go haterate. love is game. terrorist have no religion. its all in brain. follow guru nanak way.
I thought India was a democracy and believed that everyone was equal. Thank you for reiterating the fact that even TODAY Indian Muslims are discriminated against on a regular basis. Are we surprised?? I say NOT!!
Once the Bhartis had learnt the error of their ways and the visa was issued, there was no need for cricket australia to antagonize them in public. So the 'bureaucratic delay' statement was just that, a diplomatic face-saving statement. Now to use the statement that was graciously face saving for the Bhartis, against the complainant is complete obfuscation... or plain stupidity.
@@ @srushdie: why you commmenting here? go to indian site? sorry u have slums no intenet!
@M.A.S
Good to Pakistan is doing great. Hopefully more muslims from all over the world will migrate to Pakistan especially Muslims from India to Karachi
India and Pakistan cannot come closer, if they do not change their attitude. Everytime there is an attack, the relations go bad, with no dialogues and no visa. This is not the way, there needs to be a line drawn to filter these issues more closely. And the same goes to Visa issue, how can India grants a visa to David Headly without checking his purpose and deny visa to a cricketer whom is well known. This is ridiculous...
Really typical of Indians. lol Khawaja's twitts really embarrassed them two days back and they quickly sorted out his VISA issues. No wonder Aussies hate these Indian morons.
If this cricketer is not mature enough to understand the bureaucratic delay its too bad. If one comes into the public limelight one has to be more diplomatic not indulge in knee-jerk reaction. Indian VISA office needs to very careful especially after what Daoud Gilani AKA David Headley has done.
Indians cant pronounce the word 'Khawja' properly for them he is Osman Khaa-ja ( Osman eat it up) which makes them scared. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha
Indians got scared of Aussies.
"The Pakistani media is fake in their news reporting, just like their education system texts about India."
and yet we find more Indians (than Pakistanis) commenting on this PAKISTANI news site
@srushdie: Awesome comments. The Pakistani media is fake in their news reporting, just like their education system texts about India.
@Arjun: There are elements which would never like India and Pakistan to come closer. Whenever there would be a thaw in relations, a terrorist act would be committed in India to derail the process. The attack would never hurt India's economic or social interests, in fact, would portray India as a victim of terrorism, but nevertheless, would result in miseries for hundreds of thousands on both sides of the divide.
Good,! so now Khwaja can send out his resume amongst the Various IPL franchisees for the next season.
Cricket Australia confirmed the delay, but said the problem was a bureaucratic one and nothing to do with his country of birth or religion.
“Mr Khawaja's visa application was originally submitted with incomplete and incorrect documentation. This has since been rectified by Mr Khwaja, and his visa application is now under process,”
So Now he has been granted visa.
Moreover, given the past experience why do you people expect Indians to believe a Pakistan Born person.
All Pakistan-born and Bangladesh-born Muslims (and also India Born Muslims) from western countries need to be thoroughly checked before their entry into India. We cannot have a repeat of Mumbai Terror attacks which was planned, coordinated by an American Pakistani Daoud Gilani AKA David Headley
damn...... I hope he aint gonna blow up cricket ground.
Pakistanis keep crying about visa problems. But the fact is that every single time that India has attempted to relax them, we have had the Mumbai attacks or the Red Fort attacks or the Parliament attacks and on and on.
For your information, a US national of Pak origin, David Headley, scouted out the sites that were attacks in the latest Mumbai attacks. He escaped background checks just because of his US citizenship. It stands to reason that India has to be extra careful to make sure the person in question doesn't have extremist tendencies and wouldn't be working for the terrorists. It's common sense. But carry on with the India-bashing - you guys will never ever see things from the Indian perspective.
There's need to be so smug Khwaja! Good to know that Indian Visa officers are aware and reading applications! Thats the first step to fool-proof security from Pakistani terrorists!
India is a silly country for refusing visa to a cricketer !
They did not refuse him visa out me hatred towards Pakistan but out of jealousy ....... 'they (australians) beat our Indian expats but on the other side they play Pkistani expats in their team'. ha ha ha ha