ISLAMABAD – Opposition Leader Nisar Ali Khan on Wednesday demanded the government present a list of visas issued to embassies beyond their sanctioned strength to the Senate and National Assembly standing committees on interior and foreign affairs.
“The federal government is responsible for the Lahore incident, as it turned a blind eye to the activities of such foreigners who move freely across the country carrying unlicenced arms,” he said while speaking on a point of order. He said visas to foreigners should be issued after due clearance from agencies in the future. Nisar said it was the responsibility of the federal government to settle the Davis controversy with the US.
“Interior Minister Rehman Malik tells diplomats that the federal government has no problem with releasing Davis if the Punjab government does not resist. I will also share the name of that US diplomat who told us that he had been told by the federal government that the PML-N was resisting Davis’ release,” he added. He said he had been raising the issue of suspicious activities of foreigners in the House but to no effect.
“If the government had taken opposition’s concerns seriously, the crisis could have been averted,” he said, claiming that Davis was not the real name of the arrested US killer. “When three US marines were killed in Dir terrorist attack a few months ago, I had raised the issue of their presence in the area,” Nisar said, adding that when some foreigners were arrested in Lahore, Islamabad had asked Punjab government to release them.
He said contrary to the claims of the prime minister that parliament was sovereign to take all decisions, visa issuance matters were being controlled by four power centres, including the presidency, the Foreign Office, ISI and Pakistani ambassador to Washington.
He said that on one hand the US embassy was claiming that Davis had been detained illegally as he was a diplomat enjoying immunity under Vienna Convention, but on the other, it had asked the Foreign Office to grant a non-diplomatic visa to Davis.
