The Hindu : Pakistani MPs among audience at Vigyan Bhavan

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 01, 2004

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Pakistani MPs among audience at Vigyan Bhavan

By Our Diplomatic Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JAN. 31. The section was reserved for Members of Parliament, but there were some Members of Pakistan's National Assembly and Senators listening to the speech of the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, at Vigyan Bhavan this afternoon.

After months of absolute non-contact between India and Pakistan, parliamentarians from across the border have become a welcome sight at meetings, conferences and television programmes here. Among those present at the inaugural session of a convention on peace and non-violence organised by Gandhi Smriti were Asfandyar Wali Khan (Awami National Party), Farooq Sattar (Muttahida Qaumi Movement) and Minoo Bhandara (Pakistan Muslim League-Q).

Invitations for meetings and conferences seem to be increasing by the day. Senator Asfandyar Wali, grandson of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, was in New Delhi last month for a conference organised by a leading English newspaper. While parliamentarians from different parties in Pakistan have been visiting India, those from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) have been bit of a rarity. When this correspondent asked Mr. Farooq Sattar, a senior MQM leader, if this was his first visit to New Delhi, he said: "I was here just five days ago."

It is not just parliamentarians who are travelling. The former Pakistani Chief of Army Staff, Jehangir Karamat, was in the capital recently to attend a conference organised by the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis.

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