NEW DELHI: “I don’t plan to come to India ever again,” former president Pervez Musharraf said on Friday after the Indian government denied him a visa. Musharraf said he did not “believe it was because New Delhi believed he was the main person behind Kargil”.
He also asks why was he reassured time and again that he would get a visa before the denial came. “I have no words to explain my disappointment,” Musharraf told The Indian Express over telephone from his home in Dubai. “I think it shows a lack of confidence on the part of India to face me,” he said.
Pointing out that he had met both former Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh after the Kargil episode, the former general said he didn’t believe his role prompted the move. “I mean, that’s a very silly reason… All this rapprochement that I initiated has been washed down the drain. Why was I allowed to come three times between Kargil and now if that is the case?”
He says he was yet to be communicated the official reason for the denial of the visa. “I think the denial has come from either India’s Ministry of Interior (Home) or Foreign Ministry. If it is interior, they were wary of the law and order situation, or my comments on terrorism, Kashmir perhaps. Or could it be what I said on Muslim extremism being on the rise in India? I frankly don’t know.”
Even his comments on India’s role in Balochistan – another reason being cited – are not new, Musharraf said. “I have been saying this for quite some time. If you read WikiLeaks, you’ll know… It’s not based on hearsay. Akbar Bugti’s grandson Brahamdagh Bugti is being supported by India, I’ve known that for years and I told Bush about it. I told Karzai about it. What’s new now?”
Musharraf said the denial of visa came as a total surprise. “I was relaxed all this while. I have been travelling the world in the past few months and everywhere I went, I was assured by the local Indian diplomatic missions that the visa would be granted. They kept saying, don’t worry in London, then in New York, Chicago, Toronto and even here in Dubai.
But the manner in which they dragged it to the last day and then fell silent is absolutely shocking… This came as a shock even to the Indian High Commissioner here in Dubai.” The former president said New Delhi’s decision was not what the people of India wanted. “It is not in line with the feeling of the people,” he asserted.
