NA question hour: Over 4,000 Pakistanis languish in Middle Eastern jails, says Khar
Of the prisoners, Saudi Arabia detains the Pakistanis at 1,312, which include 47 women. UAE detains the second highest number.
“Around 314 Pakistanis are in jail in Kuwait and 41 were imprisoned in Iraq,” she added. The minister further informed lawmakers that as many as 368 Pakistanis in these countries were facing five-year sentences, 78 were faced 10-year sentences and 60 faced 15-year sentences.
Afghan Refugees
Meanwhile, the Minister for States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON) Engineer Shaukatullah told the house that as many as 1.65 million registered Afghan refugees were still living in Pakistan and only 600,000 of them were residing in refugee camps.
“These refugees are to be repatriated on a ‘voluntary’ basis by the end of this year as per the tripartite repatriation agreement and the present policy,” said the minister.
Outlining their distribution among the provinces, he said over a million were living in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 334,327 in Balochistan and 181,803 in Punjab. Around 15,000 were living in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
The minister added that over 400,000 refugees were living in Peshawar alone while 176,799 refugees lived in Quetta.
Leather Exports
Minister of State for Commerce Abbas Khan Afridi told the house that Pakistan earned $1.6 million during 2011-12 by exporting different leather products. The exported items included leather, raw hides and skins, leather footwear, leather manufactures, leather gloves, apparel and clothing.
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