New Delhi: In an incident that may affect Indo-Pak relations, the Sindh club of Karachi refused to host Indian high commissioner to Pakistan TCA Raghavan and his wife for a function on October 26.
According to reports, one of Karachi’s oldest institutions, refused to host Raghavan without providing any reason, even after Raghavan had arrived in Karachi to attend the event.
The event was being organised by a group called Pakistan-India Citizens’ Friendship Forum.
Liaquat Merchant, the grandson of Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah, is a co-chairman of the group. The organisers had invited Raghavan for an event related to India. Merchant was expected to make a speech at the event.
Raghavan got a rude response after he checked into his hotel in Karachi with officials informing him that Sindh Club had decided that it was not going to host him. The club never got back to Indian authorities to explain why it had decided to back out at the last moment.
While the MEA has taken the issue seriously, official sources did not want to venture a guess on whether or not Sindh Club had acted under pressure from Pakistan authorities.
Meanwhile, it is being probed that this could be in reaction to Pakistan gazal maestro Ghulam Ali not being allowed to perform in Mumbai by the Shiv Sena.