The News Pakistan - While the news of arrest of 177 Afghan pilgrims, mostly over 60, and few even ailing, has raised Human Rights concerns in the country, FIA sources insist that the apprehended pilgrims were not genuine Afghan refugees settled in Pakistan but had traveled to Quetta about 10 to 15 days ago with the sole objective of procuring fake passports to perform Haj.

According to M. Malik, Additional Director, FIA Passport Circle, these Afghan pilgrims will most likely be deported to Afghanistan after the hearing into their cases has been completed which could take anywhere from two weeks to two years and make these elderly pilgrims languish in jail for a long time.

While many view them as the victims of their country’s turbulent political situation and having to bear the burden of huge financial losses they had incurred on their journey to and back from Saudi Arabia and to get documents in Pakistan, Malik sees them as violators of the law.

“They are not the victims. They are the people who have violated the law and they knew what they were doing”, he said in reply to a question as to why the frail health condition and advanced age of these pilgrims had not been taken into consideration during their prolonged detention and later judicial custody. He, however, admitted that it was disturbing for the officials present there to do that.

“Look I was very upset to see these ageing people myself and we did our best to be polite and considerate towards them, but they are at fault in traveling on fake passports”

In reply to another question as to why these pilgrims were not detained at the time of their departure for Haj if they were suspected of being in possession of Fake passports, which could have saved them from languishing in jail, Malik replied, “We did not have the NADRA database to confirm our apprehensions and stopping a Haji always creates a furore among the masses”.

It may be mentioned here that these pilgrims had to travel to Pakistan and suffer the infamy of detention and deportation because it is difficult for Afghans to proceed on Haj these days due to the political instability resulting from the US invasion of October 2001.

The latest on the scam is that two Quetta-based travel agents, Naseeb Khan and Mirza Khan, are on the FIA’s watch list and are expected to return with the next batch of pilgrims coming on Friday.

However, no further progress has been reported as regards the alleged involvement of NADRA and some officials in the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

Printer Friendly Version | E-mail this to a friend

digg