NEW DELHI - India has officially confirmed that Pakistani High Commission has "misplaced" passports of 23 Indian pilgrims. India's external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj in a written statement in the parliament while confirming the development said,"' The Ministry of External Affairs has received information that a total of twenty three (23) passports have been misplaced by the HighCommission of Pakistan in New Delhi."
To prevent misuse of these misplaced passports, all the passports have been declared as ‘lost’ in the passport database.
Ministry of External affairs (MEA) has instructed all the Passport issuing authorities to ensure that if these applicants apply for reissue of passports "'caution may be exercised'' while processing their passport applications.
The incident happened in November of 2018 and was 1st reported in December. Pakistan high commission had issued 3800 visas to Sikh pilgrims in India to participate in 549th birth anniversary celebration of Baba Guru Nanak Dev ji in Pakistan from 21 to 30 November 2018.
The development comes even as India and Pakistan announced building of Kartarpur corridor in 2018. Pakistani Draft proposal as seen by WION says Islamabad will be issuing a permit, 500 per day to pilgrims and India has to hand over the list 3 days ahead of the visit.