Uttarakhand: Mystery behind Pakistan flags attached to balloons in Uttarkashi forest solved, details here

A Pakistani flag and a number of banners were discovered on December 30 in the woods of the Chinyalisar area in the Uttarkashi district. The balloons were green, but most of them had deflated, leaving just around a dozen whole. The retrieval prompted investigations by the Intelligence Bureau and the state police, as well as a number of counterintuitive hypotheses.

A Lahor High Court advocate named Umer Afzal reportedly posted a link to a story from TOI on Facebook with the caption Banner of Lahore Bar Association spotted in India.

For the Lahore Bar Association's annual cricket sports gala 2022, Afzal posted photos and videos on December 27. And in some, green balloons with the Pakistan flag and the bar association emblem attached were launched into the sky in a manner reminiscent of Uttarkashi.

But how did they reach the Indian side?
Meteorological scientists speculate that the balloons may have been blown towards the direction of India by winds from higher in the sky.

Anand Sharma, a retired additional general, had speculated that tiny balloons may survive a longer flight under exceptional circumstances. The winds were favourable as the western disturbance made its way eastward. According to TOI, Sharma said that the severe fog meant that no earlier sightings of the object in the sky were likely.

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Bikram Singh, director of the regional meteorological centre in Dehradun, told TOI that the western disturbance was active over the western Himalayan area on December 28 and 30, which is the only plausible explanation for the balloons' journey to Uttarakhand.

It was verified by the Uttarakhand police that the flag connected to balloons originated from Lahore Bar Association's celebration held on December 27.