RIYADH – Saudi Arabia deported about 39,000 Pakistani nationals from the Kingdom in the past four months for violating the rules of residence and work, the Saudi Gazette reported on Tuesday.
The deportations were a result of visa violations. Officials in the Kingdom are carrying out a “thorough scrutiny” of Pakistanis allowed in to the Oil-rich country amid concern that some of them could be ISIS sympathizers.
Besides involvement in some terrorist actions orchestrated by Daesh, the so-called Islamic State, number of Pakistanis were held in the crimes of drug trafficking, thefts, forgery and physical assault, according to officials.
Against this backdrop, Abdullah Al-Sadoun, chairman of the security committee of the Shoura Council, called for “thoroughly scrutinizing” the Pakistanis before they are recruited for work in the Kingdom.
Sadoun said the political and religious inclinations of the Pakistanis coming to work in the Kingdom should be known to both sides before they are recruited for work.
“Pakistan itself is plagued with terrorism due to its close proximity with Afghanistan. The Taliban extremist movement was itself born in Pakistan,” he said.
According to Nafithat Tawasul (communications window) of the Interior Ministry, there are 82 Pakistani suspects of terror and security issues who are currently held in intelligence prisons.
According to the report, as many as 15 Pakistanis, including a woman, were nabbed following the recent terrorist operations in Al-Harazat and Al-Naseem districts in Jeddah.
The ministry recalled that last Ramadan, Abdullah Ghulzar Khan, a Pakistani, exploded himself at the car park of Dr. Soliman Fakheeh Hospital near the US consulate in Jeddah. He lived in the Kingdom for 12 years with his wife and her parents. He had arrived in Saudi Arabia on a private driver’s visa.
Last year, the security forces had foiled a terrorist operation in which two Pakistanis, a Syrian and a Sudanese were held for plotting to explode Al-Jawhara Stadium in Jeddah where more than 60,000 spectators were gathered to watch a soccer match between the national teams of the Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates.
