External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Sunday intervened to grant medical visa to a Pakistani woman for a liver transplant in India.
“We are giving visa for the liver transplant surgery of Farzana Ijaz in India,” Swaraj tweeted after M Mohsin, a resident of Faisalabad in Pakistan, tweeted to her, requesting visa for his ailing aunt.
“@SushmaSwaraj Madam my Aunt is very serious condition need liver transplant pls grant medical visa. Humble request. Plss!,” Mohsin tweeted. He also attached a copy of the recommendation letter from Noida’s Fortis Hospital where Farzana is scheduled to undergo a transplant. She will be accompanied by her donor, and two attendants for the surgery in India.
Swaraj has been sympathetically considering the medical visa applications of several Pakistani nationals, notwithstanding the strains in ties between India and Pakistan over a host of issues, including cross-border terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir. This is the third liver transplant patient Swaraj has given visa in the last one week apart from a kidney transplant patient and a child needed open heart surgery who otherwise failed to fulfill the requirement of getting a recommendation letter from their Foreign Minister.
After the relations between India and Pakistan hit a low following the arrest and subsequent death sentence awarded to former Indian Navy officer Kulbhushan Jadhav by a Pak military court, India had in May this year put a pre-condition for Pakistani nationals under which they now need a letter of recommendation from Pak Foreign Minister to enable them get a medical visa. This pre-condition was put after Pakistan refused to entertain India’s request for Consular access to Jadhav and Pak FM Sartaz Aziz did not acknowledge the letter written by Swaraj to him seeking visa for Jadhav’s mother. So far, the Pak FM has not granted a single letter of recommendation to its citizens as a result the Pakistani nationals have started directly approaching Swaraj for visas.
Swaraj, while taking a humanitarian position on this issue, has allowed several ailing Pakistanis to get treatment in Indian hospitals. However, there is a mixed reaction among Indians with several expressing unhappiness for giving visas to Pakistanis whose government propagates terrorism as a policy to destabilise India. Some even express anguish on Twitter and ask Pakistanis to get treatment in China, which Pak calls as “all weather friends”. But there are several who welcome them and even offer help.