SGPC mulls banning solo women travellers in pilgrim jathas to Pak

After reports emerged of "missing" woman Sikh pilgrim Sarbjit Kaur embracing Islam and changing name to Noor Hussain following her nikah with Sheikhupura resident Nasir Hussain in Pakistan, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) has said it is planning to bar lone women travellers from accompanying jathas to the country and tighten norms in this regard.

The SGPC said it would not recommend the names of such women for travel to Pakistan in jathas in the wake of the incident.

SGPC secretary Partap Singh said the SGPC had been forced to have a rethink of its policy since it was the second such incident. In April 2018, a Sikh jatha member, Kiran Bala, had failed to return to India after she embraced Islam and changed her name to Amna Bibi after marrying a Lahore man.

He said taking abundant precaution, they had initially objected to Sarbjit's solo travel to Pakistan. However, after she obtained the recommendations of her village sarpanch and nambardar, the Sikh body sent her passport to the embassy.

He said it was failure on part of the police and intelligence agencies in verifying her antecedents, since three cases were registered against her and nine against her two sons.

As per a 1974 accord between India and Pakistan, a 3,000-strong jatha is allowed to travel to Pakistan on the most auspicious occasions of Sikhism.

A resident of Kapurthala, Sarabjit was part of the 1,932-member Jatha which crossed over to Pakistan through the Attari-Wagah joint check-post on November 4.

On November 13, the rest of the pilgrims returned to their country, but she was not among them.

This prompted Bibi Gurinder Kaur, Jatha leader, to immediately call SGPC member from Sultanpur Lodhi Gurpreet Kaur to visit the residence of Sarbjit Kaur at Amanipur village in Kapurthala.

Gurpreet Kaur had recommended the name of Sarbjit Kaur. She said she had recommended the names of 10 pilgrims, including Sarbjit.

Tracing criminal antecedents was the work of the police and investigative agencies as they do before permitting any foreign travel. Verification is done by the police while they only recommend names on a plain paper with stamp and signatures.

Gurpreet Kaur added that after Sarbjit went missing, she went to her residence and found that she belonged to a well-off family with a big house which had two cars and a tractor parked inside. Her both sons were married and they said that they were not on talking terms with their mother, while their father was living in the UK for the past 15 years.

Talwandi Chaudhrian SHO Nirmal Singh stated that her two sons — Lovejot Singh and Navjot Singh — were facing a total of nine criminal cases across Kapurthala, Sultanpur Lodhi and Kabirpur. Several trials were on and her both sons were believed to be out on bail. Their father has been living abroad for more than 15 years.

Local sources also indicated discrepancies in her travel documents. Her passport lists an address in Malout and Muktsar and bears her father’s name. She reportedly did not provide her citizenship information or passport number on the immigration form up on entry into Pakistan.