Interior Minister Chauhdry Nisar on Thursday said that more than 1,000 intelligence operators came to Islamabad under the guise of International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs) during the previous government’s rule.Nisar was responding to a call-attention notice by JUI-F Senator Hamdullah and PPP’s Saeed Ghani addressing various statements about INGOs particularly Save the Children.The minister said the office of “Save the Children” was sealed on the advice of Economic Affairs Division for three weeks, adding that INGOs do not work under the jurisdiction of the Interior Ministry which only gave their security clearance.Criticising the previous government, the interior minister said the people who raised the slogan of ‘Pakistan first’ never dared taking actions against these INGOs.The interior minister said thousands of foreigners were issued Pakistani identity cards and passports in the past but now those ID cards and passports would not be verified. He said 4 million foreigners were living in Pakistan and the government was trying to bring illegal settlers into the ambit of law. As far as INGO Save the Children is concerned the minister stated that INGOs would be scrutinised through an online system. Establishing a credible system or procedure is not objectionable. But arbitrarily stopping the working of INGOs without proof of their alleged ‘anti-state activities’ borders on the paranoid. Nisar went on to say that thousand of INGOs have been working without formal registration or documentation. The INGOs have been here since the 1980s, during which period PML-N governments have been in power too. What did they do about this issue then? Chaudhry Nisar seems to have suddenly woken up from the ‘dead’ and targeted INGOs perhaps as a scapegoat to distract from the failure of the National Action Plan. The minister literally crowed in triumph at successfully barring, despite opposition from many countries, two African NGOs that had been highlighting human rights violations in Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan at a UN forum. Pakistan is in need of all the help it can get, particularly in the neglected social sector.
pk.shafaqna.com
