Stoking another potential row, Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor has questioned the tightening of Indian visa rules in the backdrop of the David Headley case and wryly said "26/11 killers had no visas."
Wondering whether the tightening of the visa norms for foreign nationals made any sense at all and if it would actually "protect" security, Tharoor asked whether India would allow terrorists to make it a "less welcoming" destination.
Tharoor, who had set-off major controversies in the past by his tweets over Government s austerity drive and some other issues, in his latest posting on the social networking site Twitter says, "26/11 killers had no visas."
The Union Home Ministry has recently tightened visa regulations in the wake of long-term multi-entry visas given to Pakistani-American Headley and Pakistani-Canadian Tahawwur Rana, both arrested in the US for plotting terror attacks against India which led to protests from the US and British governments.
"Is all that worth it just in hope of making it difficult for a future Headley to recce? R we going 2 allow terrorists 2 make us less welcoming?," the minister wrote in his twitter account, yesterday.
The Minister also said "making it more difficult 2 visit India, return here frequently or stay long hurts large nbrs of innocents, costs us millions of $ (Dollars) & alienates."
"No easy answers 2such qsns (to such questions) government is grappling with. But important to recognize that security not become an excuse 2change (to change) our cntry 4d worse (country for the worse)," Tharoor said.
Thx (Thanx) for gr8 (great) feedback on visas. Issue is not security vs tourism, but whether visa restrictions protect our security," he said while replying to a tweet. PTI
