ISLAMABAD Nov 18: The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) on Thursday filed an adjournment motion in the National Assembly secretariat to seek a debate on PIA's failure to confirm return seats for about 30,000 Pakistani Umrah pilgrims who were stranded in Saudi Arabia.
The motion signed by MMA's Liaqat Baloch, Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, Maulana Abdul Malik, Mian Muhammad Aslam, Asadullah Bhutto and Shabbir Ahmed Khan seeks to draw attention of the government towards PIA's apathy in redressing the hardships the stranded Pakistanis had faced at Jeddah airport and in Makkah and Madinah.
According to the motion, the stranded Pakistanis were made to shuttle between airport and PIA offices and the national flag carrier's offices in Makkah and Madinah refused to cooperate with them.
It said: "Not only that these stranded Pakistanis faced logistic and boarding difficulties, some of them were even humiliated and subjected to police violence."
The motion says that most unfortunate aspect of the episode was that the return seats for the stranded Pakistanis were only confirmed on payment of 100 Saudi rials in bribe.