Bangalore: The development manager of the Asian Cricket Council (ACC), Pakistani passport-holder Sultan Rana, was deported to Kuala Lumpur late on Sunday for no fault of his.

He’d come here to take charge as manager of the Asia squad for the Afro-Asia Cup.

Rana arrived on a Malaysia Airlines flight with a visa — issued by the Indian high commission in Kuala Lumpur — which listed Bangalore as his point of entry and Chennai the exit-point.

The ACC is headquartered in the Malaysian capital.

Everything was fine till Rana, a former first-class cricketer and younger brother of the late Shakoor, reached the immigration desk. There, he was stopped for possessing an “invalid” travel document and directed to take the return flight!

A few years ago, another Pakistani passport-holder couldn’t attend an ACC meeting as the Indian high commission in Islamabad sat on his visa application.

The ACC’s chief executive, Syed Ashraful Huq, who’d come on the same flight as Rana, told The Telegraph: “The matter was taken up with the immigration chief, but he didn’t relent. He insisted that Pakistani nationals could only land in New Delhi or Mumbai or enter through Wagah…”

Among those who’d gone to receive Rana and Huq was former India allrounder and ex-MLA Roger Binny. His pleas, too, fell on deaf ears as the immigration chief refused to make an exception.

Rana, therefore, had no choice but to take the flight back. The Indian high commission amended his visa on Monday morning and, so, he should come here (via Mumbai) in the early hours of Tuesday.

Now, Mumbai is Rana’s port of entry and exit.

While the Afro-Asia Cup gets underway on Wednesday, there’s an Asia versus Africa Twenty20 face-off on Tuesday itself. After two sleepless nights and the humiliation of being deported, Rana will barely have time to prepare for official duties.

Clearly, someone in South Block must probe and fix responsibility. Such unpleasant incidents, after all, can’t do Indo-Pak relations any good either.