92 Pakistani Sikh pilgrims stopped at Faisalabad airport on the way to Hemkund Sahib

Ninety-two Pakistani Sikh pilgrims, including women and children, were stopped on Friday at Faisalabad International Airport from boarding a Gulf-bound flight that was meant to take them on to India for a visit to Sri Hemkund Sahib in Uttarakhand. A Federal Investigation Agency official told PTI the group did not have return tickets or a no-objection certificate from the federal government.

The pilgrims hold Indian visas. A federal official said they obtained those visas through the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee on their own, without going through the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee or the Evacuee Trust Property Board, the bodies that usually handle organised Sikh yatras. There is no direct air, rail or regular road link between the two countries.

What officers asked for

Immigration staff told the group they could travel once they produced an NOC and return tickets. Jatha leader Pappender Singh, also spelled Papinder in some reports, called Paramjit Singh Chandok, who chairs the yatra department of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee. Chandok said an NOC is required for government and semi-government employees, not for ordinary civilians, and that the Directorate General of Immigration and Passports does not demand one for a standard passport holder.

The flight they missed was scheduled toward Sharjah at 2:10 a.m., with a connection to Delhi. Visas, according to Singh, covered Delhi, Amritsar, Sri Anandpur Sahib and Sri Hemkund Sahib. In a video from the terminal a pilgrim asked what right officers had to demand an NOC from a civilian who already held a visa on a Pakistani passport. The group said they had been waiting for hours.

Wagah instead of the Gulf

A Pakistani official told PTI the pilgrims should have coordinated with the PSGPC and used the Wagah crossing. Dawn quoted a Punjab official making the same point and noting that the group chose a Gulf routing rather than the land border. Singh alleged that Punjab's Sikh minority minister, PSGPC president Ramesh Arora and Evacuee Trust deputy secretary Nasir Mushtaq had urged the party not to fly and had promised a road movement through Attari-Wagah.

That promise collides with the state of the border. Crossings have been tight since the two air forces closed airspace to each other after Operation Sindoor. For a hill shrine that can only be visited in a short seasonal window, a missed night flight is not a paperwork footnote. Hemkund Sahib sits at high altitude in Uttarakhand. The season does not wait on an NOC argument between Faisalabad immigration and a Delhi gurdwara committee.

As of Saturday morning the public record is still the airport standoff. Ninety-two people with visas. No return tickets in the file. An NOC demand that Delhi's yatra officials say should not apply. A suggested detour through Wagah that has not, so far, put anyone on the road.