Indian man Shihab Chottur, set on a foot journey to Makkah to perform Hajj, reached Pakistan on Tuesday. 29-year-old Shihab entered Pakistan through Wagah Border. He has the intention to reach Makkah by the time of Hajj.
Before entering Pakistan, the Keralite had been waiting for his visa for four months while staying in Amritsar. Chottur is expected to cover an 8,640km journey on foot that he started from Malappuram on June 2, 2022. He has so far walked 3,300 km covering ten states of Kerala and reaching Punjab.
He was stopped from entering Pakistan in September as currently there is no agreement between New Delhi and Islamabad for the transit passengers traveling on foot. Chottur stayed in a school in Amritsar as he waited for his visa.
Chottur reached Pakistan and shared his video from the Wagah-Attari border on his Instagram account. Sharing the video he said, “Alhamdulillah reached Pakistan”.
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The traveler says walking on foot is not a problem but gaining visas and crossing the borders on foot is a problem. “It took about six months to acquire permission to pursue the pilgrimage on foot,” he revealed.
Despite that, he did not lose hope and continued to visit the embassies in Delhi before finally getting to complete his journey.
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According to reports, Chottur has not been permitted to walk from Lahore to Taftan due to security concerns. He is being advised to travel to his next destination from Lahore Airport.
It is noteworthy to mention that a 25-year-old Pakistani Usman Arshad is also walking on his feet to Makkah to perform Hajj 2023. He began his journey on October 1, 2022, from Okara and will be covering a distance of 6000 kilometers. Arshad first walked to Khunjerab Pass for 34 days in 2021 which inspired him to walk to Makkah for Hajj.
“When I came back from Khunjerab, I thought about it a great deal and decided to do Hajj by walking to Makkah. I worked on calculating the possibilities and started planning,” he says.