EU assures Pak on deportation of migrants from Europe

The EU has assured Pakistan that deportees would now be sent to the country under a "clearly defined" procedure after some Pakistani nationals were recently deported from Europe on "unsubstantiated" charges of terrorism.
The visiting Commissioner Migration of the EU, Dimitris Avramopoulos, met Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan yesterday to discuss the differences which led to suspension of Pak-EU readmission agreement on migrants by Islamabad.
Pakistan has complained that some EU nations were sending people to Pakistan without proper verifications and even citizens of other South Asian countries were being sent to Islamabad as Pakistanis.
The EU commissioner assured Pakistan that deportees from Europe would now be sent to Pakistan under a clearly defined standard operating procedure (SOP), the Dawn newspaper reported.

Khan said no deportees should be sent (to Pakistan) without verification of their nationality by the interior ministry and informing it about the charge and evidence against them.
The minister had adopted a tough stance when some Pakistani nationals were deported recently from Europe on "unsubstantiated" charges of terrorism.

Italy deported a Pakistani national and claimed that he was involved in the Army Public School attack in Peshawar.
But after interrogation, the local authorities found him innocent and having nothing to do with terrorism.
Khan earlier this month said that Pakistan could not allow any country to label its innocent citizens as terrorists and announced that the readmission agreement signed with the EU in 2010 had been suspended.

The agreement was meant to establish, on the basis of reciprocity, rapid and effective procedures for identifying and deporting people staying illegally in a country.
The sources said Pakistan and the EU were in the process of devising a new SOP to govern the process of deportation.