ISLAMABAD:
The United Arab Emirates is likely to begin repatriating more than 2,100 jailed Pakistanis by the end of December when the prisoner exchange agreement between the two countries becomes effective, an interior ministry official said on Tuesday.
Pakistan has already ratified the agreement signed between the Interior Minister Rehman Malik and his UAE counterpart Sheikh Saif Bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi in February.
The transfer process will start as soon as the UAE government ratifies the agreement.
Under the agreement the prisoners will have an opportunity to complete their remaining sentence in Pakistani jails.
The families of the sentenced Pakistanis have been asking the government to bring their relatives back home.
A large number of Pakistanis jailed in the UAE are from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab and most of them were illegal immigrants, while the others were in for heinous crimes like drug trafficking, murder and theft.
According to official figures, 1,336 Pakistanis were imprisoned in Abu Dhabi and 864 were in Dubai.
“Such prisoners will be transferred in groups and the whole process will take a month. The government of Pakistan will bear the cost of the operation,” said the interior ministry official.
It is expected that the Federal Investigation Agency will initiate a probe against the manpower supply agents who helped illegal immigrants reach the UAE.
“Many of the Pakistanis locked up in the UAE were guilty of overstaying or travelling without valid documents,” the official said.
The plea of having lost documents is useless, the official said, explaining that the Pakistani missions in the UAE provide travel papers to citizens who lose their passports.
But such persons will have to surrender themselves before the UAE police, he said.
A spokesman for the ministry of foreign affairs was not available for comment.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 26th, 2012.
COMMENTS (2)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
This could be called height of 'Ummah' brotherhood, instead of chopping their hand and beheading they are repatriating the Pakistanis :)
are there any prisoners belonging to UAE in Pak jails?