GUJRAT: The immigration authorities of FIA offloaded a Haj pilgrim from a Saudi Arabia bound flight at the Sialkot International Airport after the passenger was found to possess forged US identity documents.

An FIA official told Dawn that during immigration clearance, a passenger travelling to Saudi Arabia for Haj was intercepted by the FIA immigration staff due to “double departure” in the IBMS system.

He claimed that detailed scrutiny revealed that the passenger had previously travelled on two different identities using American passports issued under separate names.

The official said that when the suspect was 13, his elder brother Muhammad Imran who was residing in the USA made arrangements to send him to the USA. For this purpose, they unlawfully altered the original identity and got him registered in Nadra as the son of a family residing in the USA, the official claimed.

Subsequently, his US visa was obtained and he went to the US where he was also issued a green card in 2018 and continued to travel to Pakistan on his Pakistani passport.

On Dec 1, 2022, he was issued an American passport against his fake identity and in 2025, he filed a petition in a US court seeking change/correction of his name, which was approved, and a new American passport was issued to him.

During scrutiny, the passenger’s fake identity was found to be Hussain Bukhari son of Ghazanfar Abbas Bukhari, while his real identity was found to be Muhammad Adil son of Ghulam Nabi, a resident of Roras in Sambrial tehsil of Sialkot.

The immigration authorities also claimed to have recovered at least seven different documents from the passenger and a criminal case had been being registered against him.

Published in Dawn, May 10th, 2026