No hitch as Pak PM Raja Pervez Ashraf visits Ajmer

Pakistan prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf visited Ajmer Sharif with family on Saturday after a quiet lunch with external affairs minister Salman Khurshid in Jaipur, where talk between the two stayed strictly unofficial.

Pakistan prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf visited Ajmer Sharif with family on Saturday after a quiet lunch with external affairs minister Salman Khurshid in Jaipur, where talk between the two stayed strictly unofficial.

HT Image

Just a day after the Sufi shrine’s spiritual head decided to boycott the visit to protest the recent killing of Indian soldiers on the LoC, Ashraf was given a warm welcome by the other ‘khadims (caretakers)’.

“I had the good fortune of kissing the holy shrine. I wish peace for the world, progress for Pakistan and the well-being of my family,” he wrote in the visitor’s book.

“It was a private visit… This was not the occasion... to discuss such issues,” Khurshid said when asked if bilateral issues such as terrorism came up at lunch.