PML-N Senator writes to Sherry Rehman to take up matter with Foreign Ministry immediately
Zubair Qureshi Islamabad
Senator Irfan Siddiqui has drawn the attention of Chairperson of Senate’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs Sherry Rehman towards the plight of a Pakistani girl, Sumaira, who along with her 4-year-old daughter is currently languishing in a detention center in India.
In a letter addressed to Chairperson of Senate’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, Senator Irfan Siddiqui held that Sumaira was awaiting confirmation of her Pakistani citizenship gor the last six months but nothing was being done by the authorities jere. Only after confirmation of het papers from Pakistan, she would be set free by the Indian authorities.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PM-N) Senator had earlier raised the issue on the floor of the house also during the recent Senate session.
The Senate Foreign Affairs Committee is is scheduled to meet in the Parliament House on Thursday (tomorrow).
According to details, Sumaira was living with her Pakistani parents in Qatar. In 2016, she married an Indian Muslim who managed to take her to India without visa (illegally). In 2017, she was arrested by the Indian police on the charges of entering the country illegally. They put her into a jail and later she was awarded 3-year term. There she also gave birth to a baby girl. During three years of her captivity, Sumaira’s husband stopped visiting her and severed all connections.
After completion of three-year term, she was shifted to a detention centre in Bangalore. According to Sumaira’s lawyer Sahana Biswa Patna she had been trying to contact the Pakistani high commission in Delhi and the Foreign Ministry in Pakistan to verify Sumaira’s Pakistani citizenship but to no avail.
