61 Pakistanis deported by US and Greece arrive in Islamabad

Fifty-two Pakistani immigrants deported by the US have arrived here by a special chartered flight amid tight security, a media report said Thursday.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi informed the National Assembly Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs on Tuesday that US authorities detained and prosecuted the Pakistani nationals for immigration violations, criminal conduct and other serious charges.

Dawn newspaper, quoting immigration sources, reported that 53 Pakistanis were scheduled to be deported, but only 52 people arrived on Wednesday as one person fell sick at the US airport and was not sent back.

US security officials were guarding the Pakistani deportees when they arrived at the Islamabad International Airport on a special chartered flight. Soon after landing, they asked the Pakistani authorities to take custody of the deportees who had been arrested by the US police.

The Trump administration recently launched a crackdown on the foreigners who stayed in the US even after the expiry of their visas. The 52 Pakistanis were among those who overstayed in the US, the report said.

A senior official of the Federal Investigation Agency said the deportees were allowed to go after verification of their travel documents. The official parried a question about the fate of those involved in petty crimes and deported by the US, the report said.

Qureshi had also confirmed that the US denied visas to three senior Pakistani officials following a row between the two countries over deportation of dozens of Pakistanis in America for their visa overstay and other allegations.

The Pakistani officials who faced US visa restrictions are an additional secretary, a joint secretary of the interior ministry and the director general passports, the minister said on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, nine Pakistani illegal immigrants deported from Greece were taken into custody after their arrival at Islamabad International Airport by a separate flight and shifted to the FIA's Anti-Human Trafficking Cell.

The FIA official said the deportees were kept at the cell's jail for further legal proceeding as they had gone to Europe through land route and were later caught by the Greek authorities.

He said that since the nine deportees belonged to Gujrat district in Punjab province, they would be shifted to FIA Gujranwala for further legal proceeding.

In March 2018, the court acquitted 20 other suspects accused of burning alive the Christian couple, giving them a benefit of doubt.

On Thursday, the Lahore High Court acquitted convicts - cleric Ishtiaq and Mohammad Hanif - and upheld death sentences of other three convicts - Mehdi Khan, Riaz Kambo and Irfan Shakoor.

The lawyer for the convicts told the court that the ATC awarded them death without taking the law into consideration. The (five) convicts had been nominated at a later stage in the case and pleaded for their acquittal, he said.

Lahore High Court Justice Muhammad Qasim Khan ordered acquittal of Ishtiaq and Hanif and dismissed the plea of other three convicts.

Ishtiaq had allegedly provoked the villagers through announcement from area mosques against the Christian couple. The couple was severely tortured, dragged and thrown into the furnace of the kiln by the mob.

The police had booked 660 villagers and nominated 60 of them in the FIR. The autopsy report submitted to the Supreme Court in December 2014 stated that the victim couple was still alive when they were thrown into the kiln.

In 2015, the ATC had indicted over 100 suspects under Pakistan's anti-terrorism act for 'the use or threat of action to coerce and intimidate the government or the public or create a sense of fear or insecurity in society.'