UAE not issuing visas to Pakistanis: Additional Interior Secretary tells Senate body

Additional Interior Secretary Salman Chaudhry said on Thursday that the United Arab Emirates was not issuing visas to Pakistanis citing their involvement in criminal activities, reported 24NewsHD TV Channel. 

Additional Interior Secretary made this revelation during a meeting of the Senate Functional Committee on Human Rights. 

He further revealed that during the last several months, large-scale Pakistanis were deported from Saudi Arabia, adding that many Afghans were living in Saudi Arabia while keeping Pakistani documents. 

He told the meeting that Saudi Arabia and the UAE had stopped short of imposing a ban on the Pakistani passport. “If a ban is imposed, getting it removed would be difficult,” he warned. 

Salman Chaudhry said that currently, the UAE was only issuing visas to blue and diplomatic passport holders. 

The committee was told that the UAE was not issuing visas to Pakistanis and that very few had been issued in the recent past after much difficulty. Additional Interior Secretary said that cases of large-scale illegal migration have come to light from several districts of Punjab, adding that organized human trafficking networks were operating from Gujarat, Wazirabad, Sheikhupura and Lahore. 

He said human traffickers were active in Dubai and various places in the Middle East. 

Salman Chaudhry said he visited several countries on the instructions of the Prime Minister to review increasing incidents of human trafficking. He said innocent youth were being lured and collected from 43 to 50 lakh rupees by fraudulent elements 

He said human traffickers push youths on illegal routes on the pretext of taking them to Europe. During the travel, many Pakistanis were kept in forced labor and inhuman conditions for six to eight months. 

Pakistan and the UAE share close diplomatic, economic, and cultural ties. The UAE is one of Pakistan’s largest trading partners in the Middle East and a major source of remittances, with a large Pakistani expatriate population living and working there.

Senator Samina Mumtaz Zehri, who heads the Senate committee on human rights, also confirmed that the interior ministry official’s remarks. She said the ban was attributed to concerns about people travelling to the UAE and getting involved in criminal activities.

 Talking about Afghan nationals CNIC and passports, Salman Chaudhry said Afghan national had penetration in our national system and made large number of Pakistan passports. He said it was gross negligence and corruption was involved in it. 

Secretary Ministry of Interior claimed that “now government has digitally collected the data of 180 million to 200 million Pakistanis and we have records of all our citizens and verification is done immediately.”

Secretary Ministry of Interior said “now only after verifying the identity of the citizen they are asked what assistance he needs”. 

He told the Senate body that different countries have their own laws and it was not possible to hire a lawyer in very country. 

He said many countries only allow lawyers from their own country. Secretary Ministry of Interior claimed that the majority of Pakistanis arrested abroad were involved in minor crimes and most arrests were for overstaying, identity fraud or bank fraud.