Rahat Fateh Ali Khan will not forget the last day of 2015. His ordeal of travelling back and forth between India and Pakistan lasted for a total of 29 hours. Thankfully, 2016 started on a better note.
The Pakistani singer who started his performance in Hyderabad sometime at Thursday midnight was earlier deported from the city’s airport as soon as he landed from Abu Dhabi.
For all Pakistani nationals, Mumbai and New Delhi are the designated entry points into India. The singer was then sent back to Abu Dhabi and had to make his way back to Hyderabad, via Delhi.
Ena Sharma, one of the organisers of the show, says, “Everything was going fine until Rahat Fateh Ali Khan landed in Hyderabad. When the immigration check was done, he was told that he was only allowed entry through two ports, Delhi and Mumbai and that he would be sent back.”
The organisers have blamed the airline for the confusion. “Airline authorities should have checked once before issuing the boarding pass at Abu Dhabi. If he wasn’t allowed to enter via Hyderabad then they should have told him. But despite all that back and forth, there was just a small delay in h is performance. After he landed in the city, he was taken to the venue and without any further ado, he performed for two-and-a-half hours.
Guests at the Falaknuma did wonder though how a singer, who had performed in India several times before, ended up in such a mess. But they didn’t seem to mind the wait. Rekha Lahoti, one of the guests at the event says, “Yes we had to wait for him for a while, but the guests did not have a problem. Also, you have to give it to young singer Aryan who held fort till Rahat arrived. But yeah, a few guests did leave.”
Aryan, who was supposed to perform just for a short while, kept up the entertainment and even started taking requests from the audience.
And despite a very tiring commute between countries, Khan didn’t disappoint.
The singer’s spokesperson, Salman Ahmed said “His only thought was to perform at the show in the city. He left Lahore on December 30 at 6 pm and from then on he had been travelling. After he arrived in Hyderabad, due to the visa problem he was sent back to Abu Dhabi. Thankfully, it was then that they realised that he could get back to Hyderabad if he made his entry through Delhi and he did just that.”
He adds, “The airline (Etihad) should have checked before issuing a ticket. And even if they issued the ticket, they should have stopped his boarding pass, but they didn’t do that either. The officers in Hyderabad only did their duty.”
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