PM urged to provide relief to overseas Pakistanis

PESHAWAR: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) provincial head Senator Mushtaq Ahmad Khan has demanded Prime Minister Imran Khan to take urgent notice of the miseries of overseas Pakistanis and provide them relief, especially to the labourers stranded in Middle Eastern countries.

The demand he made through a letter being chairman of the Senate Standing Committee for Science and Technology. The JI leader said that the corona pandemic has affected every aspect of life in all parts of the globe.

“Currently, some nine million Pakistanis are living abroad for doing different jobs, who not only take care of their families back home but also send billions of dollars in remittances to the country. The prime minister himself never tires of demanding them of sending donations and remittances to the country,” he added.

Mushtaq Ahmad Khan observed that owing to the corona crisis, the overseas Pakistanis have been suffering the most serious problems. “The worst affected among them are the laborers in Malaysia and other far eastern and Middle Eastern countries,” he added.

These Pakistanis on the one hand have been confined to their homes due to the coronavirus disease and most of them have lost their jobs on the other, he maintained.

The JI leaders forwarded some suggestions to the prime minister, urging him to accept and implement them at the earliest. He said that the overseas Pakistanis should also be included in the financial relief package. The government should also keep Pakistani embassies abroad open wherefrom full support and guidance should be provided to the Pakistan diaspora. The embassies should also prevent exploitation of the Pakistanis at the hands of the foreign companies, he added.

The Pakistani labourers abroad should be extended full and free health coverage. Also, arrangements should be made for bringing back the Pakistanis who want to return to the country. He offered provision of proper quarantine facilities to all returning Pakistanis.