hear the news
A 90-year-old Indian woman’s dream of going to her ancestral home in Rawalpindi came true on Saturday when Pakistan granted 90-year-old Reena Chhibber Verma a visa and she reached Lahore via the Wagah-Attari border 75 years after leaving the country at the time of partition. When she entered Lahore via the Wagah-Attari border, tears of joy came to her eyes.
Video uploaded on social media
Reena Chhibber Verma left for Rawalpindi directly from Lahore, where she would visit her ancestral residence ‘Prem Niwas’ and school, as well as meet childhood friends. In a video uploaded on social media, Verma, a resident of Pune, told that her family lived on Devi College Road in Rawalpindi when India and Pakistan were partitioned.
She said, “I used to study in Modern School. Four of my siblings also attended the same school. At the same time, one of my brothers and one sister studied at Gordon College, located near Modern School. Verma said, “My elder siblings used to have many Muslim friends, who often visited our house. My father was open-minded and didn’t mind meeting boys and girls.”
There was no Hindu-Muslim issue before partition: Reena
He said, “There was no Hindu-Muslim issue before Partition. All this happened after the partition. The partition of India was certainly wrong, but since it has happened, the governments of both the countries should work together to relax visa restrictions.
First applied for Pakistani visa in 1965
The Pakistani High Commission in India has issued a three-month visa to Verma, who was just 15 years old at the time of partition in 1947, when her family moved to India. Verma had first applied for a Pakistani visa in 1965, but it was turned down due to heavy tensions between the two countries in the wake of the war.
Verma said that he had expressed his desire to visit his ancestral home on social media last year. Subsequently, a Pakistani national named Sajjad Haider contacted Verma on social media and sent photographs of his ancestral home in Rawalpindi. Recently, Verma once again applied for a Pakistani visa, which was rejected.
Hina Rabbani Khar got visa
Verma then expressed his wish tagging Pakistan’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar, who arranged a Pakistani visa for him.