WAGAH, India, 29 September 2003 — A delegation of Pakistani lawyers entered India yesterday to attend a legal conference, calling for more people-to-people contacts between the countries despite the friction between the two governments.
The 25-member delegation will attend the two-day conference in the northern city of Chandigarh to be inaugurated today by Indian President Abdul Kalam.
“Advocates of the neighboring countries should be allowed to carry on their legal practices in each other’s courts as they could be instrumental in bringing peace between India and Pakistan,” said Arif Chaudhry, vice chairman of the bar council of the eastern Pakistani province Punjab.
“We are here to discuss feelings heart-to-heart with our counterparts in India and we will tell them that the Pakistani masses are keen for a better relationship with Indians,” Chaudhry told reporters.
The Pakistani delegation is visiting at the invitation of the High Court Bar Association of Haryana state, whose capital is Chandigarh. The lawyers entered at Wagah, the only border crossing between India and Pakistan. They will travel on to New Delhi and the Taj Mahal city of Agra during their week-long visit.
“We do not wish to address the contentious issue of Kashmir but rather we will try to promote friendly and cordial relations between the people of Pakistan and India,” Chaudhry told AFP earlier in Pakistan.
The visit comes after a delegation of Indian sitting and retired judges canceled their trip to Pakistan earlier this month over visa troubles.
Hopes for peace between the two South Asian rivals suffered a setback last week after an exchange of rhetoric by their leaders in speeches at the United Nations.
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee accused Pakistan of using terrorism as a “tool of blackmail” in a speech Thursday to the UN General Assembly, a day after Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf accused India of violating human rights in India-ruled Kashmir.
