GUJRAT: The 24 students belonging to various Asian and African countries arrested for illegally residing in a seminary were set free on Monday evening after Punjab government withdrew the case registered against them under the Foreigners Act.

The Lorry Adda police had booked these 24 students on Saturday last.

Out of the arrested students, five were Chinese, four Indonesians, six Sudanese, two each of Thailand, Philippine, Kazakhstan and Chad, whereas one belonged to Malaysia.

Punjab govt withdraws case registered ‘mistakenly’

District Coordination Officer (DCO) Liaqat Ali Chatha told Dawn that the Punjab government had taken notice of arrest of these students and ordered withdrawing the case against them.

He said the case had been lodged “mistakenly” as these students had already applied to the federal interior ministry for extension in their visas that expired some 18 months ago. The students had applied for extension before the expiry of their visas but the ministry was yet to take a decision in this regard, he added.

The DCO said he had also written to the provincial and federal authorities to expedite the process of deciding the cases of these foreigners but so far no decision was taken.

Another official said that under the law no action could be taken against foreigners residing in Pakistan under the Act if they had applied for extension well before the visa expiry date. The law also required approval of the provincial government before taking such action but the police did not fulfill the requirement in that case, he added.

Earlier, the notification issued by the provincial government for withdrawing the case was presented before the duty magistrate for the issuance of release orders. Following issuance of the order, the students were released.

As per local police, they had intelligence-based information about presence of some foreign students, some of them with expired visas, in the seminary of a Tableeghi Markaz on Shadiwal road.

Published in Dawn September 13th, 2016