Pakistan plans to overhaul its pilgrimage travel policy to Iraq, Iran and Syria after authorities confirmed that around 40,000 Pakistani pilgrims went missing or overstayed in the three countries over the past decade, raising serious diplomatic and security concerns, a senior immigration official said.
Each year, thousands of Pakistani Shia pilgrims travel to regional religious shrines, but host governments have repeatedly flagged the issue of undocumented or unreturned visitors. The problem resurfaced this week after Religious Affairs Minister Sardar Muhammad Yousaf revealed that 40,000 Pakistani pilgrims had either overstayed or gone missing in these countries without any official record of their whereabouts.
In response, authorities have scrapped the long-standing “Salar system,” in which private group leaders managed travel logistics, and are introducing a new centralized, computerized structure to track and regulate pilgrim movement more effectively.
“Approximately 40,000 of the pilgrims who went on pilgrimage in Iraq, Iran, and Syria never returned during the last almost one decade,” Mustafa Jamal Kazi, Director General of Immigration and Passports, told Arab News.
He said most of the disappearances occurred in Iraq and that Pakistani authorities had formally requested details from the Iraqi government.
Once confirmed, passports of the missing individuals will be digitally and physically blocked, and they will be placed on the border control list.
“Last year, 50 such individuals were deported from Iraq, and we have taken further action against them,” Kazi said.
He added that the lure of employment in Iraq’s booming construction sector, bonded labor involving women, and the exploitation of religious tourism for begging were among the most common motives for absconding.
To curb the trend, a new Ziyarat Management Policy has been finalized, after Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi discussed the plan during a recent pilgrimage coordination meeting in Iran.
Under the new policy, pilgrims will only be allowed to travel in organized groups, and licensed tour operators will be held directly responsible for ensuring that all group members return to Pakistan before their visas expire.
Any operator found violating the policy or failing to ensure the return of all pilgrims will have their license canceled.
Only tour operators that meet new regulatory standards will be registered as Ziyarat Group Organizers (ZGOs), according to the religious affairs ministry, which said the new system would fully replace the traditional, unregulated Qafila Salar model.
“Due to the lack of proper data regarding the number of pilgrims, travel schedules, and their return after completing the pilgrimage, various concerns have been raised by host countries and relevant institutions,” the religious ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
The new registration process, approved by the federal cabinet, will enable more effective monitoring of pilgrimage traffic and prevent individuals from using religious travel as a cover for illegal migration or unauthorized cross-border movement.