NEW DELHI: Nearly 1,300 Pakistanis on visit to India could not be traced after their visa expired, resulting in the Indian government creating an online data sharing system to track every person travelling from Pakistan, the government said on Wednesday, India Asian News Service (IANS) reported.
"As per information available, 1,283 Pakistani nationals remain untraced and missing as on June 30, 2011," Minister of State for Home Affairs Jitendra Singh said in a statement to Rajya Sabha.
"Intelligence agencies and state police regularly make efforts to locate missing Pakistani nationals and arrange to send them back to Pakistan once they are located," he said.
The minister said that to help in better tracking of Pakistani nationals, an online system has been introduced. With the system in place, every Pakistani national seeking Indian visa is required to file details online.
"This process ensures that intelligence agencies and state police have full details of Pakistani nationals, including their photographs, even before they enter India, which would help them to track Pakistani national after he or she arrives," he added.
COMMENTS (23)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
It is never the act of intellect to blame the whole basket for a few bad apples. Let's grow up guys, this system is created not to track terrorist or jasoos, for if they have to enter, they will not use the conventional route or reveal their identity. I am sure if you were to have a close look at the 'untraced' people you will know most of them are unharmful and have overstayed due to medical, personal, family and financial reasons. By taking this step of streamlining and online tracking the government is trying to help such untracable people in providing them whatever assistance required. Lets work towards bettering the relationship and not severing it. For I will live in this world but once, so whatever good I can do let me do it now.
Blaming the whole basket for a few bad apples is certainly not an act of intellect. Lets grow up. If a terrorist or a jasoos has to enter, he/she will never show his identity or travel vide conventional routes. If you pull the records am sure you would find most of these 'untraced' to be unharmful and loving people. Let's move forward and in bettering the relationship even with bitterest of enemy. Afterall we live in land of Mahatma & Buddha.
@Rock: I think this figure is vastly under reported. The actual total figure from the past three decades is well over 250,000. What happens is that, after a while, the visa department just chooses to forget about the absconding.
Do not make a mountain out of a molehill. This system in the interest of both Indian authorities and Pakistanis visiting India.
Authorities will have more accurate info at their disposal and Pakistani visitors will be less likely to be mistaken as a terrorist.
@Arzoo: you make more sense than many other commentators here. It takes all kinds to make the world, subcontinent is no exception
@ arzoo - the countries which you have mentioned are being loved by many indians for economic reasons but the authorities are not concerned with the immigration from terror perspective neither do they consider indians to be terrorists ...but a pakistani disappearing in india is of a serious concern because the first thing which comes into mind is of another possible terror attack !!
also if they really want to come to india then why did they choose to be with the land of the pure in 1947 ? moreover, indians are not that big hearted like shahid afridi and other pakistani muslims ...so please go back to your "pure" land !!
why u all doing mess over here... is this criticism in between india and pakistan or you all getting ur frustration out.. come on grow up yar.....
@Pradeep and @Narayana Murthy: Listen, we do not have a shortage of jingoist fools here in Pakistan either, so when you read things like: "Pakistan is Pakistan" and "Iron Hands" and stuff like that, just ignore it. Fact is both our people lived side by side for milleniums and are destined to live side by side till eternity and it will be nice to get over the hurt feelings and irritants and build a pleasant future so both our people can enjoy life like the other civilized world does. Look at how Europeans fought each other for hundreds of years and killed each other for that long, and now they literally have no borders. There are 21 daily trains between London & Paris each day starting at 5:30 a.m. until 11:00 at night. And they are more different from each other than the Indians and Pakistanis are.
@Pak Boy says "Pakistanis are master of their destinies"
I could not sleep all night and woke up to a dull overcast morning here in Bangalore.
Your comment made my day.
@Pak Boy - You said.... "Pakistan is Pakistan and dont mess with Pakistan or you will get iron hands"
Heh. That was one funny statement. What do we need to get steel legs and copper heads?
are u sure they are not receiving training at raw
I dont understand why Indian jealous about Pakistan.Some people from both side travel due to some issues. Pakistanis dont need to go to INDIA anyway. World highest rate of Riots, separatism, Terror, poority , belongs from India does not attract people of Pakistan .Pakistanis are master of their destinies and sending indian back home from Pakistan who are caught each day called fisherman, and spies/ India should say thanks their sailors returned home safely only due to Pakistan. Pakistanis have their own land called land of pure.
India,US,Israel --- Pakistan is Pakistan and dont mess with Pakistan or you will get iron hands
@Balma: You are so right, the undesirable elements from both sides of the border never go through the regular channels. It is the poor people from both sides of the border that are separated from their loved ones that are inconvenienced. Both India & Pakistan are ruled by anti-people rulers who can care less for the misery and pain of the common folks and thus they do not worry about making it easy for people to travel. It is not that India is making life difficult for Muslims only to travel, I visited a Hindu temple recently in Karachi and was shocked to find that the ashes remains of the departed Hindus are stacked on shelves for years waiting for the relatives to get visas to take the ashes to scatter them over Ganges River. And God only knows what Pakistan Government does to make it miserable for Hindus to get visas to visit their holy sites located in Pakistan.
@from india: Good question. Ask this question from hundreds of thousands of Indians that disappear in Saudi Arabia, U.A.E., Oman, & Kuwait. Also, read about the latest U.S. Government's statement that more & more Indians are being caught crossing into U.S. from Mexico: http://www.limitstogrowth.org/articles/2011/07/16/more-indians-dot-not-feather-crossing-the-border/ If you take a break from your hate-filled thoughts and study a little you will find that people mostly immigrate for economic reasons. These millions of Indians that try to get into Europe and America are not going there to find freedom and liberty, they are going there for Rokra.
I personally know tens of Indian people who live in Karachi. Some came for visiting their relatives and never went back. It was very easy to obtain Pakistani National ID cards under old manual system. Thousands of Bengalis, Indians and millions of Afghans took advantage of that. Others still live there un documented. Not sure how many Indians are in the mix but Pakistan in general perhaps have more undocumented people from all over. Every country has a right to expel un documented and over stayed people.
all are not terrorists ... many come here to get a better life ...wonder why they choose a secular state over a holy islamic state ???
@Pakis_ See, We care so much for pakistani citizens that we are developing a separate system for them so that they don't get lost in India.
Many times these are people like widows, divorced wives, older men with no relatives left in Pakistan, orphans sent to their grandparents In india and so on. I doubt Pakistani jasooses are entering India through proper channels. Same for indian jasooses in Pakistan. Leave it to our governments to make life miserable for common man!
wowww!!!owsummeeee
Does India expect Pakistanis who go "missing" to still regularly update this online tracker system ?
No wonder Indian government is sleeping. what else on can expect from such a government.. "1,283 Pakistani nationals remain untraced and missing as on June 30, 2011". Shocking stuff.