AMN / New Delhi
As a Diwali gift to people abroad, India on Thursday said it will give medical visa to all the needy. ‘On the auspicious occasion of Deepawali, India will grant medical visas in all deserving cases pending today,’ External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted.
On Wednesday, six more medical visas were granted to Pakistani nationals.
India has announced granting of 19 medical visas to Pakistanis this month so far. Ms Swaraj last month intervened to obtain visa for a Pakistani child seeking open heart surgery.
To a request for a visa by a Pakistani woman named Amna Shamin, whose father is already in Delhi for treatment and she wanted to visit him, Swaraj said, “Please contact Indian High Commission in Pakistan. We will allow this.”
“On the auspicious occasion of Deepawali, India will grant medical visa in all deserving cases pending today,” Swaraj tweeted.
On Wednesday, she had directed the Indian High Commission in Islamabad to issue a visa to a Pakistani child for medical treatment in India.
The child’s father, Kashif, had requested Swaraj on Twitter to grant medical visa for treatment of Abdullah, saying he needed post-liver transplant evaluation in India.
“The treatment of your child must not suffer for want of medicine. I have asked Indian High Commission to issue medical visa. @ChachaKashif,” the minister tweeted on Wednesday.
Kashif had said the child’s medicines were about to finish and he needed immediate medical consultation in India.
In another tweet on Wednesday, Swaraj said a medical visa had also been approved for a Pakistani woman, who wanted to undergo liver surgery in India.
The woman’s son, Rafique Memon, had requested Swaraj to intervene and grant visa to his mother.
Swaraj also responded positively to a request for a visa by Nazir Ahmed, whose eight-year-old child Mohammad Ahmed was awaiting medical visa for a year.
“We will issue visa to facilitate treatment of your 8-year-old child in India,” she said.