As India–Pakistan tensions and the land border closure post– Covid hold up all religious pilgrimages between the two countries, a group of 22 members of the Jain faith have appealed to the Ministry of Home Affairs to allow them to go to Pakistan to visit a shrine that has been restored after decades.
The group, led by Jalandhar-based activist Sunil Jain, who heads the World Jain-Muslim Interfaith Harmony Council, received visas to travel to Lahore on February 21, which will expire on March 7, unless they receive clearances from the MHA and the Immigration Department to travel via the Atari-Wagah border in Punjab.
Among the shrines they hope to see is a temple in Gujranwala, which was only recently being used as the local Deputy Superintendent of Police’s (DSP) office, and another shrine in Lahore that was attacked and seriously damaged in riots that followed the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992.
