Pakistan opens special police station to facilitate overseas nationals

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani authorities on Tuesday opened a special police station in the country’s federal capital to help its overseas population deal with financial deceptions, land-grabbing and other crimes against them anywhere in the country.
“This was part of our manifesto to facilitate overseas Pakistanis, and we have fulfilled this promise today,” said Sayed Zulfiqar Abbas Bukhari, Special Assistant to Prime Minister Imran Khan on Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development, while inaugurating the police station in Islamabad along with Federal Minister for Interior Ejaz Shah.
Bukhari said that a summary had also been dispatched to the Ministry of Law and Justice for the establishment of special courts to ensure that the cases of overseas Pakistanis were adjudicated in two to three months.
“Overseas Pakistanis are our asset and we are trying our best to resolve their issues at the earliest,” he said. “This police station will help resolve all their legal complaints under one roof.”
Police personnel and staff of Overseas Pakistanis Foundation have been deployed at the new police facility to register complaints and ensure their early resolution while keeping the complainants informed about progress on their emails and WhatsApp numbers.
“This facility will soon be extended to Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces,” Bukhari said, adding that investments by overseas Pakistanis in different sectors would also be protected.
Pakistan has the 6th largest diaspora in the world with 7.6 million expats working in different countries. Majority of them reside in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The overseas Pakistanis have been contributing to the national economy by sending remittances and making investments in different sectors.
The country received $21.84 billion last year, or almost 7 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product. Islamabad received $5 billion from Saudi Arabia alone. This was followed by the UAE with $4.35 billion while remittances from other Gulf Cooperation Council countries, including Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and Kuwait, stood at $.2.1 billion in the last fiscal year.