Video: Indian hospital offers free heart surgery to Pakistan hockey hero Mansoor Ahmed

Days after a Pakistani hockey legend appealed to the Indian government for a visa so that he can travel for a life saving surgery, a private hospital in India has offered to perform the surgery free of cost.
Earlier this year, news of former hockey goalkeeper, Mansoor Ahmed's heart illness made headlines in Pakistan. He had appealed to India to issue him a visa so that he could travel fora  heart transplant surgery.

Responding to the appeal, Fortis Group of Hospitals has offered to register him for the transplant less than a week after the 49-year-old legend's appeal, The Times of India reported.
The hockey icon is reportedly suffering from complications due to a pacemaker in his heart.
"Today I need a heart and I need the support of the Indian government," he said in a video posted on YouTube on Monday.
He was a goalkeeper in Pakistan's national team and represented his country in more than 300 international matches.
Pakistanis can apply for medical visas to India despite the strained relationship between the two countries.
"When I played hockey as a young man, I broke many Indian hearts," Ahmed told the news channel Sports Tak, which published the video on YouTube.

He then directly appealed to Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, asking her to grant him a visa as early as possible.
Ahmed won a bronze medal in the 1992 Olympics and was part of the team that won the hockey World Cup in 1994 in Sydney.
He added that he would like to return to India, where he had played and won many matches, and that he looked forward to meeting former India hockey captain Dhanraj Pillay, who he competed against.
However, even if Ahmed is granted the medical visa, there might be a long wait, as a heart can be donated to a foreign national only when there are no Indians on the waiting list.
The process takes anywhere between four and six months for a foreign national to find a donor heart in India, and the hospital carrying out such a transplant has to submit an undertaking that no Indian national was overlooked in favour of the foreign national, the TOI report added.