KARACHI, April 20: Around 37 pilgrims — two of them children — braved a test of their lives during which they spent 26 hours in detention in Iraq and then interrogation by the FIA after finally making it back to Pakistan.

Despite having completed all the legal formalities, the pilgrims were not allowed to enter the country by Iraqi immigration authorities. After more than a day of detention, they were sent back to Pakistan, wrung out and hungry, only to be put through another four-hour detention at the Karachi airport’s immigration counter.

The group included 14 women, 21 men and two toddlers aged one and two-and-a-half years. The elderly person in the group was 75 and one was a cancer patient.

“We departed from Karachi at about 2:40 am on Thursday in a transit flight of Fly Dubai for Iraq. We stayed for ten hours in Dubai before leaving for Baghdad and reached there at around 3:30 pm Iraq local time,” said Aale Raza, the tour operator who was leading the caravan intending to visit three sacred cities of Kazmain, Karbala and Najaf.

“The Iraqi officials held us for two hours at the immigration counter. After that they asked us to pick up our luggage. They took us to a so-called room, which was actually a part of the hallway for passengers, and asked us to stay here. The room was small and partitioned by a wooden wall, with about a dozen chairs. Too small to accommodate 38 people,” said Mr Raza.

Every one in the group had paid around 68,000 rupees for an 11-day tour of the holy cities in Iraq offered by Mr Raza.

Iraqi officials had asked the pilgrims not to go anywhere and had stationed guards outside the room. During their 26-hour detention, only one person accompanied by one guard was allowed to use the washroom outside.

“It was too embarrassing for all of us. We were accompanied by women and children for whom you cannot even think about such a situation,” said 54-year-old Saeed Rizvi, who works for a private company and lives in Ancholi area.

It was to be the first visit for Mr Rizvi and his family to Iraq. Five others, his father, two female relatives and two cousins were also travelling with him. “They put us in virtual incarceration. We were compelled to sit on the floor in a very awkward condition. Everyone passing by was staring at us bizarrely as if we had no self respect like them,” said Mr Rizvi.

The Iraqi officials did not offer us any food to the detainees during the whole stay. They asked the Pakistani pilgrims to go buy a half-litre water bottle or a cup of team, available outside on the duty-free shop for two dollars.

After a terribly long day, the passengers managed to contact the Pakistani embassy in Baghdad on Thursday evening and informed the officials of their predicament.

“A Pakistani official promised to get us released and help us in our pilgrimage on Friday morning,” said a 50-year-old businessman Shaukat Raza Zaidi. “The official said that Baghdad remained under curfew at night but promised us that everything would be fine the next morning.”

The group included a cancer patient, 24-year-old Saira Ali, accompanied by her husband and two toddlers, one year old son and two-and-a-half-year-old daughter.

Saira was among the six people in the group who had wanted to visit the holy sites to pray for her health. One passenger in the group was a 60-year-old widowed woman who had spent four years sewing clothes to save up for this journey.

Though officials at the Pakistani embassy in Bhaghdad were generous in their reassurances, they made no efforts whatsoever in helping with the pilgrims’ release.

“All we got from our embassy were 48 stale burgers and 48 half-litre bottles of water,” said businessman Mr Zaidi.

The next evening, around 5 pm on Friday, the Iraqi immigration officials took the pilgrims from the small dingy room, where they had been staying for the past 26 hours, and made them board a Fly Dubai flight again to return home.

“They did no paperwork which showed our entry or exit from the country, neither did they say we were being deported,” said private company employee Mr Rizvi.

Mentally and physically weary, the passengers sat hungry on the flight before reaching Karachi airport late Friday night. However, the journey wasn’t over. There were more surprises in store for them.

Once the pilgrims landed in Karachi, FIA officials caught them for questioning about their ‘deportation’. The officials made all the passengers stay at the immigration counter as they checked their documents, which were all valid, but showed no signs of being deported.

“We could only reach our home at about 6:30 on Saturday morning and are still very tired,” said Mr Rizvi while talking to Dawn.

Meanwhile, Saira is understandably traumatised by her experience, more so by the fact that she couldn’t pray for her health, shared Mr Zaidi who is also her maternal uncle.

None of the pilgrims understand why they were put through such an ordeal after they had taken care to complete all the legal formalities.

Mr Raza, the tour operator, said he had heard that Iraqi officials had temporarily banned the entry of Pakistanis, Indians, Afghans and Bangladeshis because of elections in Iraq. “They did not allow us to enter Iraq on the pretext of security measures for election in Iraq… But they did not explain why they had issued us a group visa in the first place, ” he said.