Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Wednesday said that the number of Pakistani students who fled Kyrgyzstan following the May 18 mob attacks has surpassed 3,000, and is expected to exceed 4,000 by midnight. His press conference here comes after his visit to the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek on Tuesday where he spoke to officials about the recent mob attacks targeting international students, among whom were Pakistanis. “I had said that I would not be placated until I physically come to Kyrgyzstan. The president had assured me that everything is under control and not to worry. “But I told him that I would like to come and meet the injured and meet with the deputy prime minister,” Dar said. He expressed his gratitude to his counterpart, Jeenbek Kulubaev, for arranging for him to immediately fly from Astana — where he attended a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) — to Bishkek. There, he visited the National Hospital met with a Pakistani student, Shahzaib, who has sustained a jaw injury. He noted that the patient had expressed a strong desire to return home and undertake further treatment there, which the Kyrgyz authorities obliged at Dar’s request.

The foreign minister noted that he declined the offer to stay overnight in Bishkek since he had to return to Islamabad and then head to Tehran today for the funeral of Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi. Dar was informed by his counterpart that the president had made a public statement saying he would not tolerate any such incidents, adding that foreign students and workers are valuable guests who contribute to Kyrgyzstan’s economy. According to Dar, the president said intelligence agencies had identified and also arrested perpetrators of the attack. Dar quoted the president a saying: “If an incident like this ever happens again, I will not spare anyone and they will be punished.” “The second thing I want to talk about, which I was shocked to hear, was that we have about 1,100 workers there, who came on the guise of being tourists and then started working without any visa or legal documents. “Naturally, the government is trying to trace them so that they can be deported. If we were in the same situation, we would also not let such people off the hook.

“I thought to avail this opportunity — and obviously there was a sympathy factor in this — that I request that these 1,100 workers who are now working there, who say they have never broken a law, who are law-abiding and hard working, that instead of deporting them, regularise them. Give them proper visas, so that these 1,100 families do not suffer through the deportation process,” Dar said. “I am grateful to the deputy PM for immediately obliging the request and getting it approved by the National Security Committee and the immigration ministry and authorities.” He expressed his gratitude that 1,100 families did not have to face the hardship of the deportation process of the workers, adding that this was a great achievement for Pakistan. Thousands of Pakistani students have fled Kyrgyzstan since the May 18 attacks, and more continue to return to Pakistan. More than 12,000 Pakistanis were studying in the capital, a Kyrgyz official had said in January. On Monday, Dar urged his Kyrgyz counterpart Jeenbek Kulubaev to take swift action against the perpetrators involved in the recent attacks on Pakistani students.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan