News
Sunday, February 19, 2012
55 Pak citizens’ bodies still not brought back from IndonesiaBy Manzoor Qadir
ISLAMABAD: The Ministry for Foreign Affairs has failed to bring back bodies of around 55 Pakistanis who drowned in Indonesia last year, despite a lapse of two months since the Interior Ministry took notice.
According to details, 55 Pakistani youths drowned in a boat accident off the Indonesian coast of Java on December 18, 2011. The vessel was heading to Australia with some 250 illegal immigrants. Their bodies were kept in Indonesia and the government of Pakistan was informed about the incident on December 23.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik, on the directions of President Asif Ali Zardari, directed the Pakistani high commissioner in Indonesia to make arrangements to bring back the bodies, but now almost two months had passed and none of the bodies had been brought back.
Sources say that the ministry officials responsible for bringing back the bodies are not pursuing the case seriously. According to the relatives of the deceased, the bodies are not being kept in mortuaries by the Indonesian government and most of them had started to putrefy.
Some media reports say the bodies had been placed in some kind of a warehouse in Indonesia and that some of them had gone missing. On February 6 a National Assembly panel, led by Nadeem Afzal Gondal, expressed serious concern over the issue and asked the ministries of interior and foreign affairs to quickly bring back the bodies. The chair of penal also directed the Ministry for Foreign Affairs to present to the House a complete report on this issue in two days.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk