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Westerners streaming into
Punjab from Pakistan

Rezaul H Laskar in New Delhi

A steady stream of Western nationals has been arriving in Punjab across the Wagah border amidst fears of a collapse of law and order in Pakistan in the event of US military strikes on Afghanistan.

A large number of Westerners, mostly tourists and employees of private companies, have been transiting through Amritsar on their way out from Pakistan, occasionally seeking overnight accommodation in the city, some 30 km from the border.

Although Islamabad-based Western diplomats have not yet made it to Amritsar, which offers a convenient land route to Lahore, there are reports that they may also make a beeline to Punjab in the event of a war breaking out.

The US is planning military strikes against Afghanistan for harbouring Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the September 11 terror attacks in New York and Washington.

The Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, which maintains all Sikh shrines in India including the Golden Temple in Amritsar, said it had made arrangements to house Western nationals leaving Pakistan.

SGPC officials quoted Westerners who arrived in Amritsar over the last few days as saying that they had been instructed by their missions to leave Pakistan via India, and not to travel through countries like Iran, Tajikistan or Kazakhstan.

"We have increased the capacity of our dormitory and instructed officials at two guest houses run by us to accommodate all Western nationals arriving from Pakistan on a priority basis," Narinder Pal Singh, information officer at the Golden Temple, told IANS on Saturday on telephone from Amritsar.

"We received a group of eight-nine Belgians yesterday (Friday) and there were three-four Canadians the day before," he said.

"They all told me their diplomatic missions in Pakistan had insisted that they return home through India," he said.

Reports from Islamabad say most Western missions have obtained Indian visas for their diplomats and their families.

Fundamentalist Islamic groups in Pakistan are opposed to Islamabad siding with the US and have organised violent street protests in many cities.

"There are also reports that the foreign missions in Pakistan are making all-out efforts to track down all their nationals in Pakistan to ask them to leave Pakistan," SGPC's Singh said.

A guesthouse belonging to the Amritsar-based Guru Nanak Dev University has also been kept ready to receive Westerners fleeing Pakistan.

SGPC secretary Gurbachan Singh Bachchan said his organisation was standing by to help Western missions in the evacuation of diplomats, although it had received no official request for assistance.

SGPC officials said they believed diplomatic missions in New Delhi had tied up with customs, immigration and Border Security Force officials in Amritsar and the Wagah border to facilitate the speedy evacuation of diplomats and their families from Pakistan.

"Western diplomats have been making inquiries about accommodation at all three five-star hotels in Amritsar - the Ritz Plaza, MK International and Mohan International," said Singh.

"The people living along the border with Afghanistan are relatively unconcerned as they have witnessed war for more than 20 years, but we've heard that people in Islamabad and nearby areas are tense about the fallout of military strikes."

A senior British diplomat, however, emphatically denied reports that some 500 British nationals had already reached Amritsar.

"Contingency measures may have been taken to evacuate the embassy staff and their family members in Pakistan, but no evacuation has taken place till now," said.

Indo-Asian News Service

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