Pakistan team gets visa for Baba Farid hockey

The Indian High Commission on Monday dismissed reports of visa denial to a Pakistani hockey team for a tournament in Punjab and said it has cleared the documents despite late submission of applications.

The Pakistani team was to participate in the 17th All India Baba Farid hockey tournament which starts on Thursday.

Suresh Reddy, Visa Counsellor in the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, said the Pakistani players were late in submitting their applications.

"The tournament in India starts tomorrow and the Pakistani team will get the visas well ahead of its first game on September 21," Reddy told PTI.

"The team was late in applying for the visas. The same team was also late in applying for visas last year and had been told they should apply well in time," he said.

Noting that it took a certain amount of time to process visa applications, Reddy said the High Commission had taken a firm policy decision not to make special concessions for applications that were submitted late, irrespective of the event for which people were travelling.

The visa applications of ordinary travellers were affected if staff were diverted to handle special cases, he said.

Earlier reports quoting Parampal Singh, vice president of Baba Farid Hockey Club, had said the Pakistani team would not participate in the tournament as the players were denied visas by the India High Commission.