An Indian woman’s dream of going to her ancestral home in Rawalpindi came true on Saturday when Pakistan granted visa to 90-year-old Reena Chhibber Verma and she arrived here from the Wagah-Attari border 75 years after leaving the country. of division.
The moist-eyed Verma, soon after her arrival, left for her hometown of Rawalpindi, where she would visit her ancestral home, Prem Niwas, her school and childhood friends.
In a video uploaded on social media, Verma, who hails from Pune, said that her family was living on Devi College Road in Rawalpindi when the partition took place.
“I attended Modern School. My four siblings also went to the same school. My brother and a sister also studied at Gordon College, located near Modern School.”
“My elder siblings had Muslim friends who used to visit our house because my father was a man of progressive views and he had no issue of meeting with boys and girls. Before partition, Hindu and Muslim had no such issue The partition that followed. Although the partition of India was wrong, now that it is done, the two countries should work together to ease visa restrictions for all of us,” she said.
The Pakistan High Commission in India has in good faith issued a three-month visa to Verma, who was only 15 years old when his family came to India during Partition in 1947.
Verma applied for a Pakistani visa in 1965, but he failed to obtain it as tensions between the two neighbors were high due to the war.
The elderly woman said that she had expressed her desire to go to her ancestral home on social media last year.
Pakistani national Sajjad Haider contacted him on social media and sent pictures of his house in Rawalpindi.
Recently, she again applied for Pakistani visa, which was rejected.
He then tagged his wish to Pakistan’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar, who facilitated his visa to visit his native city.
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