India rejects Pak’s claim of delay in overflight clearance for Sri Lanka relief flight

New Delhi: India on Tuesday firmly rejected Pakistan’s allegation that New Delhi delayed overflight clearance for a Pakistani relief aircraft headed to flood-hit Sri Lanka, calling the charge “baseless and misleading”.

Islamabad’s media and official channels had claimed that India held up the flight’s clearance for nearly 60 hours, portraying New Delhi as obstructing humanitarian assistance in the wake of Cyclone Ditwah, which has left at least 334 people dead, including in Colombo.

In a detailed rebuttal, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) released the sequence of events to counter the narrative. 

According to the MEA, Pakistan’s request for overflight permission reached India at around 1:00 pm IST on Monday, December 1, 2025. By about 5:30 pm the same day, India had granted the clearance and conveyed it through established diplomatic channels.

“There was no delay from the Indian side. The permission was accorded within a few hours as a purely humanitarian gesture,” MEA officials said.

The MEA also underlined the contrast between India’s approach on humanitarian issues and Pakistan’s continuing restrictions on Indian aviation. 

Islamabad has maintained a blanket ban on Indian civilian and military aircraft using Pakistani airspace since 2019, following the Pulwama terror attack and the Balakot air strikes, a restriction that remains in force even as India opened its airspace for the Pakistani relief sortie.

New Delhi has taken strong exception to what it described as an attempt to use a humanitarian situation to circulate “baseless and misleading” claims against India. Officials said the Pakistani narrative sought to undercut India’s role as a first responder in Sri Lanka’s ongoing crisis.

While Pakistan, which lives on help and relief from other countries, has dispatched a single flight with relief material, India has mounted a multi-pronged operation under “Operation Sagar Bandhu” to support Sri Lanka after the cyclone-triggered floods.

Under this operation, India has sent 53 tonnes of relief material, including emergency rations, tents, tarpaulins, blankets, hygiene kits, ready-to-eat food, medicines and surgical equipment. 

Two Indian Navy ships have docked in Colombo, offloading 9.5 tonnes of essential supplies for immediate distribution.

In addition, three Indian Air Force aircraft have airlifted 31.5 tonnes of material, including two BHISHM mobile field hospitals and a five-member medical team to assist and train local medical personnel. About 80 personnel from the National Disaster Response Force’s Urban Search and Rescue units are on the ground, engaged in search-and-rescue and relief operations.

A further 12 tonnes of relief material are being transported by Indian Navy Ship Sukanya to Trincomalee on Sri Lanka’s eastern coast to ensure assistance reaches different parts of the island.

Indian officials have also recalled that New Delhi stood by Colombo during its 2022 economic crisis, extending assistance of over USD 4 billion in credit lines, currency support and essential supplies, and said the present operation is a continuation of that approach.

Sri Lankan authorities, including President Ranil Wickremesinghe, have publicly thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Indian government for what they have described as “unwavering support” in a time of distress.

Against this backdrop, New Delhi has argued that attempts to project India as obstructing relief are not borne out by facts. “The claims circulating in Pakistani media are baseless and misleading,” the MEA has maintained, stressing that humanitarian cooperation in the region should not be politicised.