‘Visa faux pas’ leaves 80 Pakistani pilgrims stranded

MUSSOORIE: Around 80 pilgrims who have come from Pakistan to visit the revered

Hemkund Saheb Gurdwara

near

Badrinath

in Chamoli have been stuck in Rishikesh for the past few days. All thanks to their visa document saying they were allowed to go to ‘Hemkund Saheb Trust’ instead of Hemkund Saheb Gurdwara. The

gurdwara

trust is in Rishikesh while the gurdwara itself is in Chamoli district.


They shared their predicament while on a visit to Mussoorie on Thursday pointing out that because of the incorrect name on the visa, they were not allowed to proceed towards the gurdwara. “We are hoping that our visa would be rectified and our dream to visit the revered gurdwara will come true in a few days,” said Om Prakash, one of the pilgrims.

The pilgrims who are divided in two groups are on a 25- day visa. While the Thar Chand group is from Sindh, the Roshan Lal group is from Baluchistan. And though the eighty-odd men, women and children have come from various regions in Pakistan, they have all come with one common dream, to be able to offer obeisance at Hemkund Saheb.

However, after their arrival in Rishikesh on August 25, the group realised that they would not be allowed to proceed to the shrine. The realisation was met with sharp disappointment. “We had come with much hope to visit the gurdwara about which all of us have heard a lot,” said Roshan Lal who lives in Baluchistan. He added that he is “desperately hoping for the visa rectification to happen soon.”

“My three brothers who live in

Indore

have all visited Hemkund Saheb and I hope I can too,” he added.

The groups were on a two-day trip to Mussoorie from where they would proceed back to Rishikesh to await rectification of their visa. While walking around Mussoorie, the pilgrims were enthusiastic, often drawing similarities between Pakistan and India, be it the weather, the people or the clothes. Om Prakash whose mother lives with his brother in Indore while he lives in Karampur and works at the Arjan Dev gurdwara in Pakistan, said, “Both India and Pakistan are like two branches of flowers of the same tree. Visiting each others’ country makes us realise we have so much in common since we have the same roots.”