Lions Club members leave for Pakistan

WAGAH: After businessmen, parliamentarians and lawmakers exchange, the baton of peace process between India and Pakistan is now in the hands of club diplomats as eight Lions Clubs members led by Ashok Mehta, vice-president of the International Association of Lions Clubs, crossed over to Pakistan on Friday. Lions Club district governor J S Thind and other club members saw them off at Wagah.
According to delegates, they would keep themselves away from the contentious issues between the two countries and only advocate and concentrate on making people-to-people contact.They said that their objective was to convince both governments to involve greater participation of non-government organisations (NGOs) in the peace process. Besides Mehta, other delegates are K M Goyal, Nisha Goyal, Mukesh Goyal, Rajesh Upadhyaya, Kamal Mantri, Deepak Talwar and Tejpal Singh.
Ashok Mehta, while talking to Times News Network, claimed that they had an appointment with Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Friday afternoon.
He said that the delegates of Lions Club chosen from all zones of India were going to Pakistan on the invitation of Nilofer Bakhtiyar, advisor to Musharraf and would visit Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Lahore before returning on October 7. ‘‘Our efforts would be to address the issues of least resistance,’’ he said.