BOMBAY, 20 May 2005 — Pakistan High Commissioner to India Aziz Ahmed Khan met Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh on Wednesday to seek allotment of land for the Pakistani Consulate here.
Deshmukh assured the envoy and his team that the state government would extend all assistance to Pakistan for the construction of the consulate.
The chief minister announced that the state chief protocol officer would act as the liaison officer and assist the high commission officials in their efforts.
The Pakistani envoy has been asked to inspect and select any land according to their requirements from the short-list of available lands.
According to government sources, the reopening of consulates at Karachi and Bombay is likely by the year-end.
Despite the Pakistan president’s request for Jinnah House to be converted into a consulate, other sites are being looked into, including plots in New Bombay in Nerul town where Pakistan can construct a permanent consulate.
The City Industrial Development Corporation also has space available in New Bombay, which will be shown to the Pakistan High Commission team.
In another development, a mob of 2,000 angry Shiv Sena workers, upset over the long hours of rolling blackouts yesterday, ransacked the office of the Akola Maharashtra State Electricity Board in Vidarbha region of the state and indulged in arson.
The workers also blackened the faces of senior MSEB officials and paraded them through the streets.
The police arrested two Shiv Sena legislators in this connection. Yesterday, the Sena workers had set on fire the sub divisional office of MSEB at Chadur Railway Station in Amravati, 150 kilometers from Nagpur.
They stormed the office with torches in their hands, damaging office furniture’s and setting the office ablaze. The police have arrested two Sena workers in the incident at Amravati.
