The inert attitude of the Foreign Office and the Ministry of interior towards the Pakistani girl Sumaira stranded in India is very unfortunate.
Even the ruling of the Chairman Senate on February 17, is being ignored and despite my personal efforts, the Foreign Office officials are not even bothered to provide any details of the latest development on the matter”, said PML-N Senator IrfanSiddiqui talking to a group of journalists in his office.
IrfanSiddiqui stated that he had sent a text message to Foreign Ministry Spokesperson AsimIftikhar through WhatsApp on February 22, 2022 at 11:21 AM requesting him to call back whenever convenient to him. After getting no response Senator IrfanSiddiqui’s staff called the Foreign Office spokesperson on his landline number and they were told that the spokesman would call back after 10 minutes, but despite repeated reminders from Senator’s staff, Foreign Ministry spokesperson has not contacted till now. Replying to a question, Senator IrfanSiddiqui said that he was not aware of any report sent to the Senate by the Ministry of Interior or Ministry of Foreign Affairs even after a ruling of the Chairman Senate.
Senator IrfanSiddiqui said that the red tapism has ruined our system in su ch a way that the bureaucracy does not even respect the Parliament and is not ready to accord any importance to the humanitarian issues.
IrfanSiddiqui said that so far apart from the announcement of issuance of citizenship certificate to Sumaira by Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, neither the Government of Pakistan nor the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi considered it necessary to keep the Pakistani nation informed regarding the progress on Sumaira’s case. IrfanSiddiqui said that he would submit a privilege motion on the inappropriate behavior and unprofessional attitude of the Foreign Ministry spokesman in this regard. In response to a question, he said that “I have also met the Chairman Senate Muhammad SadiqSanjrani today who managed to get information about Sumaira from the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi. The Chairman Senate informed me that the High Commissioner has contacted Sumaira whose travel documents are being prepared and hopefully she will be sent back to Pakistan as soon as possible. IrfanSiddiqui revealed that the Indian lawyer who helped Sumaira had also confirmed that she had come in contact with the Pakistani High Commissioner.
Senator IrfanSiddiqui said that if this exercise had started six months ago, Sumaira would have returned to her homeland by now.
