NGO ‘Save the Children’ ordered to leave Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: The government of Pakistan has ordered “Save the Children” – a global children’s aid agency to leave the country within 15 days, said a statement issued here on Thursday.

The statement issued by the federal interior ministry said the international NGO was involved in ‘anti-Pakistan activities’.

Meanwhile, the country office of the organisation has been sealed in the federal capital and its foreign staff has been directed to leave Pakistan within 15 days, according to police.

It’s not the first occasion the NGO has been asked to leave Pakistan as the country had done so in the wake of accusations linking it to a fake vaccination programme launched to track down slain Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden back in 2012 also.

A Pakistan intelligence report had linked the aid agency to Pakistani doctor Shakeel Afridi, who the CIA allegedly used to carry out the fake vaccination programme.

Afridi allegedly worked for the CIA collecting DNA in a bid to verify bin Laden's presence in the town where he was killed by US Navy Seals in a raid on his compound in May 2011.

An official report prepared jointly by Pakistan civil and military intelligence had blamed a former Save the Children director for introducing Afridi to the Americans.

The NGO’s activities had been under strict scrutiny for the past six months.