Islamabad, August 6
An Indo-Pak "peace conference" that was to begin in Lahore today was put off due to the Pakistan Government's reluctance to grant visas for 182 Indian delegates, including Magsaysay winner Sandeep Pandey and documentary filmmaker Anand Patwardhan, its organisers said.Coordinator for Pakistan-based Institute of Peace and Secular Studies, Saida Diep, said here that her organisation has postponed the two-day conference as none of the Indian participants were given visas by the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi.
"We could not hold the conference. We were helpless," she said. The conference was aimed at discussing a "visa-free, nuclear-free, peaceful South Asia," the organisers said.
Diep said she planned to take up the issue with Pakistan's Interior Ministry, which had not cleared the visa applications.
A number of Indian activists, including Pandey, Patwardhan and several professors and students from Jawaharlal Nehru University were to take part in the conference.
Diep said the government of Pakistan's Punjab province also declined her request to provide accommodation for delegates to the conference, which she now plans to hold next month.
— PTI
