Abandoned abroad: 700 Pakistani pilgrims stuck in Iran

Tour operator accused of making incomplete arrangements, fleeing with passports

KARACHI:

Up to 700 Pakistani pilgrims, including a large number of women and children, are currently stranded in Iran after a travel agent failed to procure visas for the onward leg of their journey which would have taken them to Iraq.

Pilgrims, intending to travel to Karbala in Iraq to observe Ashura, had booked with the Karachi-based travel company Karavan of Pride.



The travel agency, located in Gulistan-e-Jauhar area of Karachi, had offered pilgrims a budget package to visit the holy sites in Iran and Iraq that would enable them to undertake the trip for just Rs60,000 which is nearly half the average fare.

The Express Tribune has learnt that the company received a flood of applications from people wishing to avail their discounted package. Out of a total of 1,100 applications, 700 would-be travellers were accepted by the company.

Hailing from Karachi and different parts of Sindh and Punjab, the pilgrims were flown phase-wise to Qom in Iran via Dubai from Karachi between the first and fifth of Muharram. After a brief stay there, the pilgrims were expecting to travel by road to Iraq.

However, security officials at the Iraqi border turned the pilgrims back because they did not have valid visas.

“We came to observe Ashura in Iraq, but we were denied entry to the country since we did not have visas,” narrated one of the stranded pilgrims in a video that is currently doing the rounds on social media. “The purpose of our visit thus remains unfulfilled.”

“We chose this travel agency, because it was offering a good package at cheap rates, but we had no idea what would happen to us,” a pilgrim lamented.



Unable to travel to Iraq, the passengers turned to the tour operator’s representative, Amina Gauhar, who was accompanying them. Some of the pilgrims, however, claimed that Gauhar had allegedly disappeared along with their passports.

“There is no one here to help us,” said the pilgrim, adding that “there was no ‘Kafla Salar’ (caravan leader) from the very first day and the only representative of the tour company who was with us has now disappeared.” The pilgrims claimed that they had been left to fend for themselves in a foreign country.

Relatives of the pilgrims in Karachi say the doors at Karavan of Pride’s offices near Munawwar Chowrangi in Gulistan-e-Jauhar are now locked and company’s owner cannot be traced at his home or anywhere else.

Some of the agency’s employees are perplexed by the sudden developments. Aun Jafferi, a senior manager at the Karavan of Pride, told The Express Tribune that they had organised around 10 trips in their two-year history. “This has never happened in any of the previous trips.”

Jafferi explained that the tour company’s owner, Ali Jaffer, was responsible for arranging visas for the pilgrims. But he disputed the claim of some passengers that they were ‘stranded’ in Iran due to missing documents.  “They have their passports along with their return tickets.”

Published in The Express Tribune, November 8^th, 2015.