Randhawa gives credit to UK tycoon for passport waiver

Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Dera Baba Nanak, November 1

Cabinet Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa credited UK-based tycoon Prof Peter Virdee with helping get the passport waiver.

“The UK businessman is considered to be close to Imran Khan and ‘Peter Virdee Foundation’ run by him has done a lot of work for Sikhs and Sikhism in Pakistan. He impressed upon the Pakistan PM to waive the passport requirement. “Not many people living in rural areas had passports but nevertheless wanted to travel to Kartarpur. There is big relief,” the minister said.

Randhawa said Virdee was also close to Sayed Zulfiqar Bukhari, chairman of Pakistan Tourism Board and special adviser to Imran Khan.

“Virdee had been working closely with Bukhari to ensure the waiver came into effect before the corridor was thrown open to the public. His efforts have now borne fruit much to the delight of the Sikh masses. I got to know about the decision after I had a telephonic conversation with Virdee yesterday evening. However, I wanted to hear it officially and now it’s official,” he said.

Randhawa asked the Gurdaspur DC to call off the search to identify a piece of land to establish a Post Office Passport Sewa Kendra (POPSK) in Dera Baba Nanak.

On October 22, Arun K Chatterjee, Joint Secretary (Passports) in Ministry of External Affairs, had written to the Department of Posts to identify a 300 square feet piece of land to set up a POPSK. The DoP, in turn, took the local MLA in the loop before asking the administration to start a search. However, after some days of frantically trying to identify a patch of land, officials stopped the hunt as not even a single inch of land was available in the town.

“Some land was accessible but once the corridor was announced in November last year commercial activity picked up and all vacant land was purchased by people having business interests. Imran Khan’s announcement has actually come as a blessing in disguise. I had recently asked the DC Vipul Ujwal to extend the search to nearby areas and again we could not place our hands on any type of land. Today morning, I asked the DC to stop searching after going through Khan’s tweet,” said Randhawa.