ISLAMABAD – Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Overseas Pakistanis andHuman Resource Development (OP&HRD) Syed Zulfikar Abbas Bukhari Tuesdayhinted early release of Pakistani prisoners languishing in the United ArabEmirates (UAE)’s jails in minor cases.
Pakistani inmates will be released and repatriated soon, he informed theSenate Standing Committee on the OP&HRD, which was chaired by SenatorHilal-ur-Rehman.
He said the government was in contact with the UAE authorities to getPakistani prisoners released at the earliest especially those involved inpetty offenses.
On the direction of Prime Minister Imran Khan, the ministry and itssubsidiary departments were making all out efforts and discussingpossibilities with the authorities concerned abroad to ensure the releaseof inmates locked up in foreign prisons on minor crimes, he apprised thecommittee.
The committee appreciated the government for ensuring release of over 2,100prisoners from Saudi Arabia’s jails.
Giving credit to the government for achieving this milestone onhumanitarian front, Senator Nighat Mirza said the leadership of bothPakistan and Saudi Arabia must be lauded for this kind gesture toward themost unattended segment of the society.
She sought the pace of repatriation process of Pakistani prisoners recentlyreleased by Saudi government.
To this, Overseas Pakistanis Foundation (OPF) Managing Director AmirSheikh said the foundation was constantly in contact with the relevantauthorities in Saudi Arabia and asked to share the released prisoners’ datato make sure their safe return to their homeland. The repatriation processwould take more than three weeks, he added.
He said, however, over 150 released Pakistani from Saudi jails had returnedto the country.
Zulfikar Bukhari also informed the meeting that the ministry had alsofacilitated the return of 28 Pakistani drivers stuck up in Iraq and over400 in other countries despite the airspace was being closedintermittently.
Senator Sassui Palijo took the exception over the humiliation of ShakirUllah’s body which was recently handed over by India after Pakistanreleased Indian air force pilot wing commander Abhinandan as a good willgesture for peace.She urged the committee chairman to take up the issue and termed theshameful act of Indian authorities as terrible one.
The committee had also discussed the case of Nasir Awan, an overseasPakistani, to evacuate his land from an alleged illegal occupation.
The committee discussed his case at length and asked the OPF managingdirector to respond his queries.The OPF managing director said the case was sub judice and the foundationhad no authority to retrieve his (Nasir) land.
Nasir appealed the committee to give his children free education as hisdecade-long litigation made him bankrupt.At this, Zulfi assured that the ministry would bear the expense of hischildren education.
The senate body also asked the OPF to inform about the total land it hadretrieved from encroachers till-date.Amir Sheikh said they had evacuated some 102 Kanal land of OPF ValleyZone-V in first month of this year and over 76 Kanal from Lahore due tospecial assistant to prime minister’s unwavering efforts.
The OP&HRD Secretary Pervaiz Janjua said the ministry had requested the lawdivision to draft a law for establishing special courts for the overseasPakistanis’ lands retrieval as majority of the Pakistani expatriates wereexperiencing the same situation.
The OPF managing director informed the panel that there were total 984cases regarding property disputes out of which some 400 were being pendingin various courts of law.
Meanwhile, the committee deferred two public petitions saying it was not anappropriate forum for hearing those cases.
The meeting were also attended by senators Sabir Shah, Molvi Faiz Muhammad,Najma Hameed and Samina Saeed.