KARACHI, May 22: Relatives of those people who have been held by Indian authorities on charges of “visa tampering” have called for their immediate release from Indian prisons on humanitarian grounds.

They argued that their loved ones were innocent and had been duped by unscrupulous agents.

Speaking at a press conference at the Karachi Press Club here on Thursday, they stressed the need for a probe into visa frauds. They said that the agents who were operating freely in the city without any fear and went around swindling innocent people should be brought to the book.

Alleging that officials of the Islamabad-based Indian High Commission were hand in glove with the visa agents, they urged the government of India to constitute a high-level inquiry to put an end to the menace, which was creating difficulties for the innocent members of divided families.

Speakers, including the representatives of the non-governmental organisation that had organised the conference, identified two such agents operating in the city for over three years now as Nasreen of Ranchhore Lines and Jabbar of Azizabad.

According to them, these agents are charging Rs15,000 for a one-month Indian visa and an additional Rs5,000 to Rs10,000 for those who wished to stay for two months in India.

However, it is worth noting that the official fee for an Indian visa is only Rs15. Besides, to facilitate those seeking to visit India, Indian authorities devised a mechanism of hiring the services of a courier service a few years ago. The courier service charges Rs515 (visa fee included) for delivering the passports of the aspiring travellers to the Indian embassy in Islamabad and back to the applicants.

Unfortunately, a majority of the citizens are not very well-aware of the steps taken by the Indian authorities and fall into the trap of unscrupulous elements operating in the city, they said.

Explaining the procedure as carried out by the visa agents, they informed the newsmen that whenever a person approached these agents for a visa, after checking the documents they immediately contacted some officials of the Indian High Commission over the phone and would inform the applicant on the spot if the visa would be granted or not. It usually took two to three weeks to get the visa stamped on the passport.

They said that the visa sticker pasted on the passport had clearly type-written on it the words that it was valid for a “stay for 30 days”.

However, they added, the agents used to tamper with the sticker by changing it to “stay for 60 days” by using a pen.

They said that a large number of people during the past three years had visited India on such 60-day visas and had stayed there for two months and returned and had not been questioned by anybody in India or Pakistan. So, these travellers did not know if these visa stamps had been tampered with and they continued to believe that it was done by the relevant Indian authorities based in Pakistan for the purpose and that their visas were authentic.

Interestingly, they said that even if the visas had been tampered with the question was as to how the passengers travelling through the Thar Express got a clearance by the Pakistani immigration at Zero Point and subsequently by the Indian Immigration at Munabao. None of the Indian government departments raised any objections during their stay in India as the Pakistanis had to report to the police of their arrival as well as of their departure in every city that they were allowed to visit, they added.

They said that the Indian immigration authorities at Munabao started arresting people since the middle of April and as many as 22 people, including women, children and the elderly were arrested. However, so far over 130 people had been arrested on charges of visa tampering and sent to the Jodhpur jail.

They said that they were worried about the safety and welfare of their relatives being kept in the Jodhpur jail as a few Pakistanis who were held in Indian jails had died. They demanded that it be ensured that no harm came to these “innocent” Pakistanis.

Qasim, whose son Akber Ali, daughter-in-law Reshma, and granddaughter Anusha, had been arrested in India because of forged visas, said that his son had called him informing him that even his six-year-old child had been kept separately from the parents. He said that his son had informed him that four other children – one-and-a-half-year-old Urooj, Yasmeen, 4, Mohammad Hussain, 7, and Sulaiman, 8, –were also being kept separately from their parents, who had been arrested on similar charges.

Responding to a question as to how he spoke to his son who was in the Jodhpur jail, Qasim said that some of his Indian relatives had gone to visit Akber in jail and his son spoke to him using their cellphone.

The 22 people currently in Indian jail include Mohammad Juma, Ibrahim Hashim, Fatima Mohammad, Ammi Bai, Hajiani Moosa, Zulekha Ishaq, Sultan Adam, Amna Sultan, Urooj Sultan, Iqbal Shah, Mohammad Hussain, Razia Hussain, Sughra Hussain, Abdul Rehman, Shehar Banu, Mohammad Hussain, Sulaiman Abdul Rehman, Yasmeen Abdul Rehman, Ameer Ali, Akber Ali, Reshma Akber, and Anusha Akber.

A fairly large number of the relatives of the Pakistanis arrested in India, also staged a demonstration in front of the press club and chanted slogans for the arrest of the visa agents and release of their relatives from the Indian prison.