2025 will be year of Indo-Pak friendship: Qureshi

In a significant development, the Indian High Commission in Islamabad formally invited Pakistan's Bhagat Singh Memorial Foundation chairman Imtiaz Rasheed Qureshi to participate in an official function being organised on the occasion of the 76th Republic Day of India.

Qureshi will be among the guests at the reception, to be held on India’s Republic Day, at Serena Hotel in Islamabad. The invitation was extended by Geetika Srivastava from India’s High Commission.

Reacting to the gesture, Qureshi congratulated the people of India on the Republic Day on behalf of the people of Pakistan and said that 2025 would prove to be the year of friendship between India and Pakistan. He said poverty would be eradicated from both countries, unemployment would end, and prosperity would reign.

Speaking to The Tribune, Qureshi said people-to-people contact needed to be strengthened. Recently, a delegation from India was invited to attend the World Punjabi Conference in Lahore, the cultural capital of Pakistan. Such events should be organised on both sides of Punjab, and trade must be restored to benefit growers, manufacturers, and consumers, he added. “We should find ways to fight poverty, unemployment, and other common issues instead of material fights,” he said.

The Qureshi family had migrated from Sukhera Basti Abohar to West Punjab due to the partition in August 1947. They have been advocating to develop love and respect for Bhagat Singh and his companions who were hanged during the freedom struggle in Lahore.