Jalandhar man struggling to marry fiancée from Lahore turns to PM Narendra Modi for help

JALANDHAR: After waiting for over three months to send a sponsorship letter to his fiancée and her family in Lahore, a Jalandhar-based man has now appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for help. Jalandhar resident Kamal Kalyan had got engaged online to distant relative Shumaila of Lahore on January 2018. He is trying to send a sponsorship letter to his fiancée and her family so that they can get visas to travel to India for the wedding.
“My father’s two maasis (mother’s sisters) were married in Lahore and Kasur and their families did not migrate during Partition.Shumaila is granddaughter of one of my father’s maasis. Our families were in contact with each other. My father had planned to go there to attend a family wedding in 2015 but somehow he could not go. We witnessed that marriage online and slowly interaction between the families increased. As a result, my interaction with her started and it turned into a friendship in 2016. We finally prevailed upon our families to approve of our engagement,” Kamal, a resident of Basti Bawa Khel area, told TOI here on Thursday.
“We got engaged online on January 2018. Initially, her family wanted us to go to Pakistan for the wedding and we were ready. However, then we were told that the marriage should be solemnized here as only then would it be registered here. We then requested them to hold the wedding here and they got ready. They went to the Indian embassy in Pakistan and got the entire information about the documents and procedure required for their visit to India. They were provided a ‘performa’ and it took me close to 6-7 months to complete the formalities to prepare the sponsorship letter and related documents and I got them ready on March 21. However, then the lockdown started and I could not send these by courier. I have been checking with an international courier service but they are saying it can be sent only after flights resume,” said Kamal, who works as a car dealer in Jalandhar.
Kamal, who belongs to the Valmiki community, has now appealed to PM Modi for helping to get his fiancée’s family here for the wedding after waiting for over three months. “Her mother, brother and his wife wanted to accompany her for the marriage. The three of them would be returning to Pakistan just after our marriage,” he said.