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Hundreds Of Pakistanis In US Jails For Visa Violations
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Musharraf discussed the issue of detained Pakistanis in the US |
By Aamir Latif
IOL Pakistan correspondent
ISLAMABAD, Feb. 14 (IslamOnline) - Hundreds of Pakistanis, mostly charged with violating their visa limits, have been languishing in the U.S. jails since the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, awaiting a decision by the United States Immigration Department to deport them, a Foreign Ministry official told IslamOnline Wednesday.
Some of them have been detained for the last five months, he said. A Pakistani, Rafiq Butt, had died in the FBI custody in October 2001 where he had been detained on the charges of violating visa limits. The FBI claimed that Rafiq had died of a heart attack, whereas the deceased's relatives in Lahore charged the FBI with torturing Rafiq that led to his death.
A number of Pakistanis, who have returned to Pakistan permanently after September 11 to "avoid the disgrace that they faced by the American security forces after the attacks."
Shabbir Ahmed, who had been a taxi driver in New York from 1991 to September 20, 2001, charged the Pakistani Ambassador to the U.S., Dr. Maleeha Lodhi, for negligence and lethargy regarding the release of the Pakistanis. "We requested her for so many time to meet the U.S. authorities to help Pakistanis. But she fails to do anything till now," he contended.
Pakistanis in the United States wanted President General Pervez Musharraf, who met President Bush on Wednesday, to take up the issue of detained Pakistanis with Bush, reports say. "He should tell the U.S. President to ask the U.S. law-enforcement agencies to expedite the deportation proceedings and send them home," Mazhar Khan, a Pakistani-American told IslamOnline by telephone.
"We have been in very difficult situation. The U.S. authorities are neither producing the cases of detained Pakistanis in court nor releasing them," he added.
The foreign office official said that General Musharaff had planned to discuss this issue with President Bush during their official meeting. Pakistan has become an essential ally of the United States in its war against "terrorism" since September 11 when it withdrew its support of Taliban and provided intelligence and logistic support to U.S. forces in their attacks on Afghanistan.
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