150 Pakistani Sindhi brides cross visa hurdle, fly to India for weddings

After visa curbs and the Attari closure, 150 Pakistani Sindhi brides reached India through overseas transit routes for their weddings. The arrivals have brought relief to separated families, even as nearly 300 more women await similar visas.150 Pakistani brides take air routes to India for weddings. (Representative image)At least 150 Pakistani Sindhi women engaged to men in India have now travelled to the country for their weddings after their plans were disrupted by visa restrictions and the closure of the Wagah-Attari border route following Operation Sindoor.Community leader Rajesh Jhambia said the Centre later issued visas to the brides and their relatives, allowing them to reach India through transit routes in other countries. “The long wait is over, finally,” Jhambia said on Sunday.Jhambia, who works for Sindhi migrants from Pakistan, told PTI that families from Sindh had for years travelled to India through the Wagah-Attari border in Punjab for such marriages. “The brides and their kin have arrived in India through transit routes via Muscat, Dubai, Sri Lanka and other countries,” he said.He said the situation changed after Operation Sindoor, as visas were rejected for those planning to enter through Attari. Operation Sindoor was a 2025 military campaign launched by India in response to a deadly terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, in which 26 civilians were killed. Jhambia said the community then approached Raipur-based Sant Yudhishtirlal Shadaani, the spiritual head of Shadaani Darbar, a prominent Hindu religious shrine in Ghotki in Pakistan’s Sindh province. He said the shrine began preparing a list of Pakistani women engaged to men in India. “There were about 150 brides who were to be married in Nagpur, Raipur, Jodhpur, Pune and other cities in India,” he said.According to Jhambia, the temple contacted the Ministry of Home Affairs with the list and urged the authorities to facilitate visas for the brides and their families. The ministry allowed them to enter India on the condition that they would travel only by air. “Since April this year, 150 brides and their families from Pakistan have travelled to India via Dubai, Oman, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and other countries for weddings. These include 15 cases from Nagpur,” he said. Jhambia said nearly 300 more such women in Pakistan are still waiting, and the community has asked the Indian government to issue visas to them as well. For now, he said, 150 brides and their families have been able to reach India through alternative air routes after the border restrictions put their weddings on hold.- EndsWith PTI inputsPublished By: India Today Web Desk Published On: Aug 23, 2026 21:18 IST