Pakistan leader on peace-mission in India

New Delhi, Aug 24: Claiming that President Pervez Musharraf is all for promoting amity and friendship with India, former Pakistan Federal Minister for Culture today said well-meaning people of both countries should debunk chauvinistic attitude of fanatics to strengthen the ongoing peace process between the two countries.

Speaking at an interaction on 'Indo-Pak Relations' here, Mr Fakhar Zaman, also the chairman of the World Punjabi Congress(WPC) said both India and Pakistan particularly Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and General Musharraf should ''personally take stock of the extremists and conspirators in the fold of their governments''.

Referring to the expulsion incident involving diplomats of both countries, Mr Zaman said ''Antagonists of Indo-Pak amity seemed to have renewed their efforts to subvert peace-process between the two neighbours.... such incidents have the propensity to mar relations between the two countries as the past bears testimony to that''.

Mr Zaman, also an eminent Punjabi writer, recently married an eminent historian Dr Famita Hussain who teaches in Delhi University here. And, he described his marriage in Delhi as a step towards promoting Indo-Pak friendship.

He said hawkish and adventurist elements in both countries should not be allowed to vitiate the restoration of the good neighbourly Indo-Pak relations and 'those enemies of peace' be identified and their moves be checkmated.

Referring to recent train blasts in Mumbai, Mr Zaman said such happenings did incur a great damage to the peace-process but they should not be allowed to deter the efforts of building good relations between the two nations.

Boosting trade and better economic relations is an anti-dote against the misgivings developed among the people on the both side of the international border, he said adding that the enhancing of the trade between them would be beneficial for the people particularly the poor.

As a step towards strengthening the people-to-people relations of the two counties, Mr Zaman suggested issuing of multiple visa of permit to visitors from either side, enhancing interaction between intellectuals, writers and mediapersons and human rights activists from both sides.

Besides, that the school books carrying poisonous propaganda against each other should be revised with enhanced exchange of students and academicians, he added.

On this occasion, Prof Riaz Panjabi, an Indian academician and Dr S S Noor, chairman of Indian chapter of WPC said clearance by Indian Home Ministry and Pakistan Interior Ministry at Wagah border be abolished for the visitors from the two countries.

Also, they demanded opening of Kasur-Ferozepur border, known as Ganda Singh wala border.

UNI