Saudi Arabia deports 39,000 Pakistanis for allegedly sympathising with ISIS, visa violations

A sixth-grader, through his father, on Friday sued in the Islamabad High Court officials of the Pakistan President's House. AFP Photo

RIYADH: Some 39,000 Pakistani nationals have been deported from Saudi Arabia in the past four months for visa violations even as a top security official has ordered a "thorough scrutiny" of Pakistanis allowed in to the Kingdom amid concern that some of them could be ISIS sympathisers. Saudi Arabia deported about 39,000 Pakistanis from the Kingdom in the past four months for violating the rules of residence and work, Saudi Gazette reported today, quoting informed security sources as saying. The sources also told the paper that the involvement of a number of Pakistani nationals in some terrorist actions orchestrated by Daesh, the so-called Islamic State, is a cause of public and societal worry. They said a number of Pakistanis were held in the crimes of drug trafficking, thefts, forgery and physical assault. Against this backdrop, Abdullah Al-Sadoun, chairman of the security committee of the Shoura Council, called for "thoroughly scrutinising" the Pakistanis before they are recruited for work in the Kingdom. He asked for more closer coordination with the concerned authorities in Pakistan to thoroughly check those coming to work in the Kingdom due to the involvement of a number of Pakistanis in security issues, the report said. 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. Meanwhile, according to Nafithat Tawasul (communications window) of the Interior Ministry, they 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. They were planning to use a booby trapped truck loaded with 400 kg of explosives to undertake the terror attack, the report said.