India has ended its soft approach towards Pakistan after the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir. To control terrorism and teach a lesson to the neighboring country, India has suspended the Indus Water Treaty. Along with this, various types of visas for Pakistani citizens, including medical visas, have been canceled. Pakistani citizens used to come to India for better medical treatment and surgery, but after the Pahalgam attack, India has banned it. Now, Pakistanis who came to India on a medical visa will have to leave the country on April 29, i.e. today.
There has been constant tension in the relations between Pakistan and India, due to which the number of people coming on medical visas due to various issues. Recently, after the Pahalgam attack, instead of showing leniency, India has taken a tough step and canceled medical visas. As a result, today Pakistani citizens who came to India on a medical visa will have to leave the country and return to their country.
Healthcare industry experts believe that the ongoing retaliatory policy between India and Pakistan since the terrorist attack in Pahalgam may end medical tourism from Pakistan to India in the future. In this context, the Ministry of External Affairs announced last Thursday that medical visas issued to Pakistani citizens will be valid only till April 29, 2025. After this, Pakistanis coming to India for treatment will have to leave the country.
Currently, while there is a discussion that Pakistani citizens who came to India on medical visa will now have to leave India, it is also important to know how many Pakistani citizens actually go to India for treatment. For this, it is necessary to take a look at the data of the last five years.
How many Pakistanis came for treatment?
According to the World Bank’s 2023 report, Pakistan has a population of over 24 crores. However, when we analyze the number of Pakistanis coming to India on medical visas, it appears quite low in proportion to the population. Moreover, the number of Pakistanis coming to India for medical treatment has decreased significantly over time. Due to security concerns and terrorist attacks in India, there has been a negative impact on Pakistani patients coming for treatment across the border. For example, 1,600 Pakistanis were issued medical visas in the year 2016, while this number has decreased to only 200 in 2024.
However, the situation between India and Pakistan became more complicated in 2019, when the Pulwama terror attack shocked India, re-escalating tensions between the two countries. According to TOI, only 1,228 medical visas were issued to Pakistani nationals between 2019 and 2024, including 554 in 2019, 97 in 2020, 96 in 2021, 145 in 2022, 111 in 2023 and 225 in 2024.
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