India extends diplomatic courtesy to Raja after faux pas with Bukhari

Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf will pay a personal visit to India tomorrow (Saturday).

The prime minister will visit the shrine of the saint of ‘Ajmer Sharif’ accompanied by his family members.

Meanwhile, India has promised to extend diplomatic “courtesy” to Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf during his private visit to Jaipur this weekend, but it has now come to light that local authorities committed a diplomatic faux pas when Pakistani Senate chairman Syed Nayyar Hussan Bukhari visited Ajmer in December.

Bukhari, who is number two in Pakistan’s official hierarchy after the President, threatened to cancel meetings and go back, a report in The Indian Express said on Friday. He calmed down only after Rajasthan governor Margaret Alva telephoned him and apologised for the slips, urging Bukhari to continue with the rest of his visit.

Vice President Hamid Ansari, who had invited Bukhari to India on an official visit, is learnt to have conveyed his displeasure to top officials after he came to know about the incident. He asked them to sensitize local officers about dealing with high-level foreign delegations.

Bukhari had gone to Ajmer after meetings with Ansari, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi. He had been extended diplomatic protocol reserved for the Vice President.

Sources privy to details of the incident said that Bukhari was having lunch with his delegation comprising of about half-a-dozen senators during his day-long visit to Ajmer to offer prayers when local intelligence officers approached them to check his passport and visa.

A Pakistani official asked them to wait, saying they would produce the documents after lunch. But the intelligence officers apparently insisted on seeing the documents immediately, leading to a verbal exchange.

The commotion came to the notice of Bukhari and he was extremely upset when he was told about the cause. He is understood to have threatened to cancel his meetings with Alva later in the day.

He also wanted to speak to Ansari and Kumar to convey his displeasure.

Finally, it was proposed that since both Ansari and Kumar were unavailable, Alva could be asked to intervene and pacify Bukhari.

Sources said the local intelligence officers were pulled up later as the Pakistani high commission took up the incident with the Ministry of External Affairs.