As India's deadline for Pakistani citizens to leave the country passed, chaotic scenes unfolded at the Attari-Wagah land crossing in Punjab.
Sana, an Indian woman married to a Pakistani doctor, was forced to hand over her two young children to their father at the Attari border due to visa restrictions imposed by the Indian government following a terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir. Sana, who entered India on a 45-day visa, is unable to return to Pakistan as she is not yet a Pakistani citizen and the process could take another four years. The Indian government revoked the visas of Pakistani nationals on Short-Term Visas, leading to the separation of families at the border.
Since March 7, public was not allowed at the Attari border due to COVID-19 restrictions.
About 21 Pakistani nationals stranded at the Attari-Wagah border following the expiry of the Indian government's deadline for them to leave the country crossed over into Pakistan through the land route of the Integrated Check Post on Friday, officials said. In wake of last week's Pahalgam terror attack, the Indian government cancelled all types of visas granted to Pakistani nationals and ordered them to leave by April 30. The Attari-Wagah border, located near Amritsar in India and Lahore in Pakistan, was shut on Thursday after being kept open till April 30. According to reports, about 70 Pakistani nationals were stranded at the border on Thursday after the deadline for them to leave India expired a day earlier. The 21 Pakistani nationals who entered Pakistan till 12 pm on Friday had been camping on the roads outside the Integrated Check Post. About 50 more Pakistani nationals are queuing outside the Integrated Check Post and may be allowed to cross over into Pakistan after due clearance of customs and immigration authorities. Pakistan on Friday announced it would continue to allow the use of the Wagah border crossing for its citizens stranded in India.
The tension gripped the area after a man was arrested for allegedly sharing an objectionable post about the Yoga Day, they said.
The Border Security Force (BSF) has scaled down the retreat ceremony held at Attari, Hussainiwala and Sadki along the India-Pakistan border in Punjab following the Pahalgam terrorist attack. The BSF's Punjab frontier said it was suspending the symbolic handshake of the Indian guard commander with the counterpart and the border gates will remain closed during the ceremony. The move is seen as a response to the recent terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir, in which 26 people were killed.
The exit deadline for Pakistani nationals visiting India on SAARC visas ended on April 26, while for the rest, except those on medical visas, it is set to close on Sunday, April 27 amid escalating tensions between the two countries over the Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 people.
A Meerut woman, married to a Pakistani national, was denied entry to Pakistan at the Wagah border after she presented her Indian passport. She was accompanied by her two children who hold Pakistani citizenship. The authorities permitted the children to cross but Sana refused to separate from them, resulting in her return to India.
BSF official said while two rockets landed in an agricultural field in the border villages around Attari border on Friday night, the rest two failed to explode.
Abdul Waheed was brought from Srinagar by the Jammu and Kashmir police for his repatriation to Pakistan.
The Indian Army has released a booklet on Operation Sindoor, which was launched to avenge the April 22 ghastly Pahalgam attack in which Pakistan-backed terrorists brutally killed 26 civilians, mostly tourists, and left many injured.
Pakistan Defence Minister Khwaja Asif has admitted the country's history of supporting, training and funding terrorist organisations as 'dirty work' for the West, a mistake for which he said Pakistan had suffered.
United States Charge d'Affaires Natalie Baker on Wednesday met Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar as part of efforts to de-escalate tensions with India following the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22 in which 26 people were killed.
Main imports from the neighbouring country during April-January 2024-25 included fruits and nuts (USD 0.08 million), certain oil seeds and medicinal plants (USD 0.26 million), and organic chemicals.
India has revoked all visas issued to Pakistani nationals effective April 27, advised Indian nationals in Pakistan to return home, and suspended visa services to Pakistani nationals. The move comes in retaliation to the Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 people and alleged cross-border links to the attack. This escalation follows India's previous actions against Pakistan, including expelling Pakistani military attaches, suspending the Indus Water Treaty, and shutting down the Attari land-transit post.
Hours after being dismissed from service for 'concealing' his marriage with a Pakistani woman, Central Reserve Police Force trooper Munir Ahmed said he solemnised his marriage nearly a month after getting permission from the force's headquarters last year.
Following a deadly terror attack in Pahalgam, India has ordered all Pakistani nationals to leave the country within 48 hours. This has led to a mass exodus of Pakistani citizens from India, while several women married to Pakistani nationals and holding Indian passports are facing difficulties returning to their families in Pakistan.
Terrorism and insurgency in J&K had subsided when India demolished East Pakistan -- for the simple reason that Pakistan understands power. We need to follow Chanakya's dictum of Saam, Daam, Dand, Bhed for strategising against Pakistan, asserts Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (Retd). The ground truth is that unless we are prepared to acknowledge our shortcomings, including massive intelligence failures, punish those responsible and take corrective actions, we will continue in the same vein, asserts Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (Retd).
The pole, which is already in place, is said to be visible from a long distance, even from Lahore in Pakistan.
The Congress leader tweeted his request to Prime Minister Narendra Modi after Pakistan PM Imran Khan's announcement that the IAF pilot would be released on March 1.
Anju, an Indian mother of two children who travelled to Pakistan to marry her Facebook friend, returned to India through the Wagah-Attari border on Wednesday, officials said.
Several candidates, including Taranjit Singh Sandhu, the BJP's Amritsar candidate, are promising resumption of India-Pakistan trade via the Attari-Wagah land route.
Guru Nanak Devji's 554th birth anniversary will be celebrated on Monday, November 27, 2023.
Delighted by the Centre's move to notify the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA), nearly 2,000 Pakistani Hindus living in Nagpur are preparing to seek Indian citizenship.
Anju, who now goes by the name of Fatima after converting to Islam, on July 25 married her 29-year-old friend Nasrullah, whose home is in the Upper Dir district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
India and Pakistan are the most successful teams in the tournament with three titles each.
Various Hindu families, including children and women, from the interior parts of Sindh, reached the Wagah border on Tuesday for going to India on the visas for religious pilgrimage, The Express Tribune reported.
Pakistani authorities have released 198 Indian fishermen, who were languishing at a jail in Karachi after being arrested for allegedly fishing illegally in the country's waters, and handed them over to India at the Wagah border.
The 34-year-old Indian woman was staying at her 29-year-old Pakistani friend Nasrullah's home in the Upper Dir district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. They became friends on Facebook in 2019.
A married Indian woman has travelled to Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to meet her friend whom she befriended and fell in love with on Facebook, police said on Sunday.
A 50-year-old fisherman from Gujarat, who was apprehended by Pakistani authorities a year ago on high seas, died in a jail in that country due to unknown reasons, an official said on Monday.
Two members of the family of Pakistani prisoner Sanaullah Ranjay, who is in deep coma at a Chandigarh hospital after being attacked in a Jammu jail, arrived in Amritsar on Tuesday via the Wagah-Attari border.
The narcotics substance worth Rs 775 crore in the international market was seized from a house belonging to key drug case accused Raji Haider Zaidi's sister in Muzaffarnagar on Sunday.
India has made it clear to China that peace and tranquillity in border areas is essential for the development of overall bilateral ties and the relationship has to be based on the 'three mutuals' of respect, sensitivity and interest, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said.
'I told them I am a Muslim, you are Sikh, you are Hindu, but we have one country to save.'
Patriotic fervour prevailed at the border with border residents singing songs, beating drums and carrying the tricolour in their hands.
Business on both sides ready to move into a completely new era, as India and Pakistan begin freeing the genie, maybe, hopefully, irreversibly
The Pakistan government on Friday freed eleven Indian nationals as they were repatriated to India through the land transit route of Attari/Wagah border.
According to customs officials, the cross-border movement of trucks will drop further.
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