Ganpat Singh Sodha, a resident of Umerkot, Pakistan, was unable be with his mother as she lay dying of cancer in his brother’s house 300 km away, across the border in Jodhpur. Three of his children are in Jodhpur too, and he hasn’t seen them in five years.
A former Sindhi teacher in a government school in Umerkot – as the Hindu principality of Amarkot was renamed after Partition – Ganpat had been desperately calling the Indian High Commission in Islamabad as he tried to obtain a visa.
On April 20, 2021, he sent the Commission a voice message in Urdu/English saying, “This is Ganpat from Umerkot, Sindh. I applied for a visa last month also and it was not issued. Now my visa has been rejected again.” He still has audio recording on WhatsApp in which he pleads in a cracking voice, “My mother is on her deathbed. Please issue the visa on humanitarian grounds.”
“We cannot issue the visa as we have not got the necessary clearances from India,” read the official response.
Ganpat’s mother died on May 15, less than three weeks after his plea to the Indian High Commission in Pakistan. A week before she passed away, she made a video on Instagram, pleading with the authorities to allow her son to travel to be with her, but to no avail.
Kept apart
The case of Ganpat’s family is not an isolated incident; many other Sodhas in Pakistan are forced to remain away from their families due to visa troubles. The aforementioned Times of India report mentions many such Sodhas who duly apply for and are even granted visa extensions while in India, but have these applications rejected once they return to Pakistan, unable to return.
Ganpat estimates that there are around 300 such cases of ‘blacklisted’ Sodhas. He personally knows of dozens of such cases. For instance, Shakti Singh, a physician in Pakistan, is the only brother of four sisters, all of whom were married and reside in India. When he visited them in 2017, he was able to get a visa extension through the local FRRO. He wants to go to India again, this time to get married, but is being refused a visa on the grounds of an ‘overstay’ last time.
Another is Lohran (75) who has recently been widowed. Her children live in India but she must remain alone in Pakistan’s Khipro village because both her and her late husband were blacklisted after their last visit.
Visa issues have also been keeping brides and grooms apart. Three years ago, Hamir Singh had hosted three baraats going from Jaisalmer to Umerkot. When the brides’ Indian visas didn’t come through, he got visa extensions for the grooms.
“I told the Pakistan government that they are my guests, stuck in this situation,” he said. The grooms eventually left but the visas for the brides only came three years later. By then, the babies had been born. “Can you imagine?” Hamir Singh lamented.
Ganpat, however, recently received some good news. Inquiries about his case led to the blockage being cleared and he was told to re-apply for a visa. He couriered the application to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad on 27 November. The process normally takes 4-6 weeks.
He now awaits the visa that will reunite him with his family, sadly however, without his mother.
Beena Sarwar is a journalist covering issues of peace, media, gender. She tweets at @beenasarwar.
This article was first published on Sapan News Service.