PKONWEB Report – A special chartered plane will be bringing some 65 Pakistani citizens deported by the United States.
All these individuals were detained and prosecuted for immigration violations, criminal conduct and other serious charges. The United States has arranged a special chartered plane to send these detainees back to Islamabad this week.
The United States has also imposed visa sanction on three senior Pakistani interior ministry officials because of a row over repatriation of deportees.
Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Tuesday told the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs that visa curbs had been applied by the US on three officials of Pakistan’s interior ministry.
The officials who are facing visa restrictions are an additional secretary and a joint secretary of the interior ministry as well as the director general passports.
The sanctions on the three bureaucrats have been put in place after a row between the two countries over deportation of dozens of Pakistanis, currently in the US, because of visa overstay and other charges.
The US put the restrictions on three officials that are said to be overseeing country’s policy on accepting back deportees.
The US has over the past 18 months deported over 100 Pakistanis, all of whom were accepted back. It is the first time that Pakistani authorities have insisted on verification of the credentials of the deportees.
The foreign minister, however, clarified that there were no visa restrictions by the US government on Pakistani citizens in general. Consular operations of the US embassy in Islamabad are continuing and are granting visas to the eligible applicants.
