Sushma fast-tracks Pak-origin woman’s visa for hubby’s surgery

Shafiqa ji, please contact the Indian Embassy (in Indonesia). I have asked them to issue visa for your husband’s liver transplant in Chennai

NEW DELHI: External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj has directed the Indian embassy in Indonesia to issue visa to a woman of Pakistani-origin whose husband has to undergo liver transplant in India.

Sources said the woman, Shafiqa Bano, made the request on Monday. The minister tweeted on Wednesday: “Shafiqa ji, please contact the Indian Embassy. I have asked them to issue visa for your husband’s liver transplant in Chennai.”

Swaraj is understood to have used her discretion to clear Bano’s visa request without referring it to the Ministry of Home Affairs. On security grounds, the MHA’S nod is mandatory for visa clearances

SUSHMA SWARAJ, External affairs minister

for Pakistanis, especially applications made in third countries by Pakistani nationals or people of Pakistani-origin.

The minister’s action was explained as a “humanitarian gesture” to facilitate medical treatment for the family’s ailing member.

Earlier this month, Swaraj had reached out to reassure a group of Pakistani girls of their security while on a visit to Chandigarh for a peace conference. The group from Pakistan was there at the time India carried out surgical strikes against terrorists across the Line of Control. “Betiyan sabki sanji hoti hain,” Swaraj had told the delegation’s leader.

Her actions apparently are in conformity with the government’s approach, as brought out in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent speech in Kerala, to distinguish the people of Pakistan from its establishment. The weather bureau on Tuesday said the city was reeling under a ‘cool spell’ owing to the cyclonic storm, Kyant, over the Bay of Bengal, which had led to continental air incursions over the western part of the country and