India Slams Pakistan For Unilaterally Shutting Postal Services Without Prior Information

Union Minister for Communications Ravi Shankar Prasad on Monday (28 February) hit out at Pakistan for stopping letters and mails to India unilaterally and without prior information.

"Every country works under the world postal union. But Pakistan is Pakistan. Pakistan has shut postal services (delivery of Indian letters) for the last two months,” Prasad said at an event in New Delhi.

"Pakistan has stopped Indian letters without any prior information or notice to our country," he added.

The minister said that the move by Pakistan is directly in contravention of the world postal union norms. He added that Indian Postal Department is contemplating on initiating action against Pakistan.

Since 27 August, Pakistan has refused all consignment from India, forcing the Indian postal authorities to put mail marked for the country “on hold”, reports The Indian Express.

The moves comes in the wake of India abrogating the provisions of Article 370 of Constitution, which gave special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.

“It was a unilateral decision on their part. This is the first time they have taken such a stand… We are not sure when the order will be lifted,” said R V Chaudhary, director of Postal Services (Mail and Business Development).

Delhi Foreign Post Offices (FPO) Superintendent Satish Kumar said, “Most of the postal mails to Pakistan are dispatched by this office and a majority of them are from Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir. It is mostly academic and literary material.”

Pakistan’s press attache to India Khwaja Maaz Tariq, however, said he had not heard anything on the matter and that he was hoping for a speedy resolution, particularly due to the ongoing 550th birth anniversary celebrations of Guru Nanak Dev.

(With Inputs from IANS)