Fear factor? Flight of capitals

More than 320 US nationals have left Pakistan in a month since the Raymond Davis case.

ISLAMABAD: More than 320 US nationals have left Pakistan in a month since US citizen Raymond Davis has been accused of killing two men in Lahore. Their departure highlights the sense of unease felt by Americans in the aftermath of the gruesome incident.

“Last month saw one of the highest number of Americans leaving Pakistan,” a senior official of the immigration department told The Express Tribune. “This was abnormal.”

The incident, which has apparently strained the relationship between the two countries, put the strategic dialogue scheduled for last month on hold.

“As many as 17,195 UK citizens also left Pakistan in February, according to the statistics put together by the immigration department of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).

At least 1,974 Australians left the country when its high commission asked them to avoid crowded places.

These figures are three times the previous month’s (January’s) departure numbers, the official added.

Overall, 59,627 foreigners left Pakistan over the past month out of the total departure of 306,717 passengers, the official figures show.

However, Additional Director-General Immigration Mohammad Manzoor was of the view that foreigners might be feeling insecure but no such apparent move was observed on airports so far.

“Such flow of traffic on major airports is normal,” Manzoor told The Express Tribune.

“Around 8.2 million foreigners arrived in and departed from Pakistan in 2010,” the immigration statistics indicate.

US Embassy Spokesperson Alberto Rodriguez said that he had no such news yet. “I have no information on Pakistani immigration figures,” he told The Express Tribune.

The FIA officials in light of this unusual departure of foreigners have planned to hold a meeting to keep an eye on the situation and deal with the foreigners’ concerns.

Foreigners, a majority of them belonging to European countries, approached immigration offices for their early departure from Pakistan as they were asked to keep their movement restricted (from office to office), a senior official of FIA revealed.

The FIA officials also launched an operation against foreigners who were suspected of been involved in drug trafficking and other crimes in Pakistan. They also apprehended dozens of Somalis and an Algerian in narcotics-related cases, according to official.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 3^rd, 2011.