A group of Pakistani academicians – two professors and their three students – from Lahore set out to attend the recently held literature festival at Jaipur, India. They entered India via the Wahaga land border on Jan 24 wherein they were informed that the scheduled train to Jaipur has been cancelled and they had to go to Delhi. Next morning they took a taxi from Delhi to Jaipur. Soon after checking in a hotel, intelligence police took them to their office. After spending six hours in their office, they were asked to go back to Delhi and get registered at a police station. When they reached Delhi, they were informed by Delhi police that they had unnecessarily travelled to Delhi and could go back to Jaipur at any time. When they reached Jaipur on Jan 26, they were again greeted by intelligence police to complete the paperwork, continued all day. On Jan 27, they were able to join the literature festival which concluded on Jan 28.
Obviously it was a tactic to psychologically (and financially) scare the Pakistani guests. If opposition parties had demonstrated against the participation of Pakistani writers, that would have been understandable. However, it was the government machinery which must be working on some previously chalked out strategy. Not a very promising way to reinstate delicate relations at public level between these two odd and insensitive neighbours.
