No Pak letter for medical visa: Sushma
India will give a medical visa to a man from Pakistanoccupied Kashmir (PoK) without a request letter from Islamabad, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj said on Tuesday, reiterating that the disputed region “is an integral part of India”.
Swaraj’s announcement came in response to a plea by a 24-yearold PoK resident, Osama Ali, who appealed to the minister to waive the request letter from Sartaj Aziz, the Pakistan prime minister’s adviser on foreign affairs. Ali, who has been diagnosed with a tumour in the liver, is seeking medical treatment at a private hospital in Delhi.
“PoK is an integral part of India. Pakistan has illegally occupied it. We are giving him visa. No letter required,” Swaraj said in a tweet, responding to a report in the Indian Express highlighting Ali’s dilemma.
The report quoted Ali’s family as saying that Aziz has refused to write a letter to the Indian government.
PoK, a 13,297-square km area with an estimated population of about four million, has been under Pakistan’s control since 1947, but India says it is part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Swaraj’s tweet came amid heightened tensions between the neighbours, especially over rising militancy and civilian protests in Kashmir.
Though India has been giving medical visa to people from Pakistan, on July 10, Swaraj put out a series of tweets saying the Indian government needs Aziz’s “recommendation for the grant of medical visa to Pakistan nationals”.
The precondition was seen as a retaliation to Islamabad’s refusal to grant visa to the mother of Kulbhushan Jadhav, a former Indian Navy officer sentenced to death on espionage charges.