90-year-old Indian lady revisits Pak after 75 years to see her ancestral residence in Rawalpindi

An Indian lady’s long-cherished dream of visiting her ancestral residence in Rawalpindi materialised on Saturday when Pakistan granted 90-year-old Reena Chhibber Varma a visa and she or he arrived right here by way of the Wagah-Attari border, 75 years after leaving the nation on the time of Partition.

Moist-eyed Varma, instantly after her arrival, left for her hometown Rawalpindi, the place she is going to go to her ancestral dwelling Prem Niwas, her college, and childhood associates.

In a video she uploaded on social media, Varma, who’s from Pune, mentioned her household was residing on the Devi College Road in Rawalpindi when the Partition happened.

“I studied at the Modern School. My four siblings had also gone to the same school. My brother and a sister also studied at the Gorden College located near the Modern School,” she recalled.

“My elder siblings had Muslim friends who would come to our home as my father was a man of progressive ideas and had no issue of meetings with boys and girls. Before the Partition, there was no such issue of Hindu and Muslim. This happened after the Partition. Although the Partition of India was wrong, now that it has happened, both the countries should work together to ease visa restrictions for all of us,” she mentioned.

The Pakistan High Commission in India, in a goodwill gesture, has issued a three-month visa to Varma, who was solely of 15 years when her household moved to India in the course of the Partition in 1947.

Varma had utilized for a Pakistani visa in 1965 however did not get it then as tensions between the 2 neighbours have been excessive due to the battle.

The aged lady mentioned she had expressed her need to go to her ancestral residence on social media final yr.

Sajjad Haider, a Pakistani citizen, contacted her on social media and despatched her photographs of her residence in Rawalpindi.

Recently, she once more utilized for a Pakistani visa which was denied.

She then tagged her need to Pakistan’s Minister of State on Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar who facilitated her visa to go to her ancestral city.

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