Old students from Pak seek to revive Indian connection

Old students from the historic Lahore Government College are in Amritsar to invite their former college mates in India for a reunion.

A delegation of old students from the historic Lahore Government College in Pakistan are seeking to revive long-forgotten ties with India as the nuclear-armed neighbours make new headways in peace.

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The 11-member team arrived in Amritsar early on Wednesday from where they will begin a week-long journey to various Indian cities, inviting their former college mates for a reunion.

The 140-year-old college will celebrate its foundation day on March 20. "In order to promote the peace process and stabilise it we thought that we will go to different cities of India and personally invite all our old students for the function. We are very happy with the hospitality and sincerity we have been shown. It's touched our hearts that the feeling we have are mutual. The day is not far when people from both nations can visit each other easily," Khalid Manzoor Bhatt, secretary of the old students association said.

"We have to move jointly... such peace initiatives should increase, people should visit each other more often, there should be more understanding, then both governments will also feel that the relations need to be improved," Shammed Ahmed, another alumnus, added.

Ties between the nuclear arch-rivals have greatly improved since an April peace bid by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee last year, which he said was the last in his lifetime.

Vajpayee met Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad in January on the sidelines of a regional summit. As a follow-up, the two sides held their first bilateral official secretary-level talks in more than two years, last month.