Owaisi urges Centre to arrange special flights to bring back Umrah pilgrims

All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi. File

All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi on Thursday (October 22, 2026) requested the Union government to arrange special aircrafts to bring back around 4,000 Umrah pilgrims stranded in Saudi Arabia amidst the ongoing attacks on aviation infrastructure in that country.

Speaking to the media, Mr. Owaisi underscored that the pilgrims are stranded in Medina, Mecca and Jeddah, and alleged that travel agents had abandoned them without assistance. The pilgrims had travelled by means of Indigo, Akasa Air and Air India, and faced considerable inconvenience, he highlighted.

Mr. Owaisi said the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) did not grant permission to IndiGo, Akasa Air and Air India to operate flights to Jeddah.

He said some of the pilgrims were staying at the Hyderabad Rubaath and urged External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Civil Aviation Minister K. Ram Mohan Naidu and Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju to take note of the situation. “The situation there is changing,” he said, urging the government to press special aircraft into service to bring the pilgrims home.

The AIMIM chief said many of the stranded pilgrims were from economically weaker backgrounds and could not afford to purchase fresh tickets on Saudi Arabian airlines to return to India.

In the recent past, a Hyderabadi man, identified as Mohammed Yousuf, was killed in an attack at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, while his two sons sustained injuries, one of whom required knee surgery.

Travel agents told The Hindu, that they were dealing with emergencies with either closure of airports or flights — except Saudi Airlines — between India and Saudi Arabia. “In a unique case, a family on umrah had decided to leave for Hyderabad, on a carrier other than Saudia, on the 85th day of the 90 day umrah visa validity. This was a few days ago,” Akram Baramzan from Imperial Travel Services said. Explaining the limited options left, he explained, ”Now an option is to obtain a Bahrain visa and then fly from there, as the Saudi visa would expire. Overstaying can have consequences,” adding that it would take a few days to obtain the Bahrain visa.

Later in the evening, hours after Mr Owaisi’s statement, Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson, MEA said that around 3,000 stranded umrah pilgrims have returned to India from Saudi Arabia over the past week on available flights.

Mr. Jaiswal underscored that the Indian Embassy in Riyadh and the Consulate in Jeddah were engaging with airlines and tour operators to facilitate the early return of the affected pilgrims. The 3,000 pilgrims who returned were in addition to more than 10,000 regular Umrah pilgrims who had booked available flights and travelled back to India during the same period, Mr Jaiswal stated in a post on X.