Pak visas for 70,000 foreign Tablighis last year

The News, April 16, 2005
Pak visas for 70,000 foreign Tablighis last year
By Rahimullah Yusufzai

PESHAWAR: More than 70,000 foreigners were given visas for Pakistan late last year to attend the annual Tablighi congregation at Raiwind near Lahore.

Haji Mohammad Javed, a former NWFP minister who is now a stalwart of the Tablighi Jamaat, told The News that federal interior minister Aftab Sherpao on his request facilitated the issuance of 45-day visas to non-Pakistanis wishing to come to Pakistan for the gathering at Raiwind last winter.

Tablighis are preachers who spend days and weeks away from home urging fellow Muslims to return to the ways of Islam. They spend their own money, travel far and wide and sleep in mosques and seminaries.

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony of the new building of the Regional Passport Office in Peshawar’s Hayatabad town Saturday, Sherpao said he considered it a real service to Islam that members of the Tablighi Jamaat were given Pakistani visas for 45 days stay instead of the usual one week. He said the same liberal visa policy would be adopted for "Jor," which is get-together of the Tablighis after period intervals, and those wanting to reach Pakistan for the event would be facilitated.