Pakistani authorities on Friday asked Kanwar Sandhu, resident editor of The Hindustan Times' Chandigarh edition, to leave the country shortly after he checked into a hotel in Lahore, where he was part of a delegation led by Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala.
Sandhu was among three editors in the 45-member delegation headed for Gujaranwala, Bhai Kanhaiya's birthplace.
"I had checked into my hotel after a few formalities. However, the Pakistan authorities came to my hotel and asked me to leave the country citing that I had been blacklisted for an alleged visa violation in 1991," he said over phone from Amritsar.
"I don't remember if I had done any visa violation," he said adding that he had visited Pakistan in 1990-91 and did a story for "my organisation (India Today at that time) on Pakistan-occupied Kashmir" and had even travelled with the then Pakistan prime minister and interviewed him.
"They could have denied me visa earlier... when I had already landed up in a hotel, why did they decide not to allow me to be part of the delegation?"