An agreement on the return of criminals and those who violate immigration laws has been signed between Pakistan and the United Kingdom.
British Home Secretary’s statementÂ
British Home Secretary Priti Patel wrote on Twitter yesterday that she is proud to have signed an important agreement with Pakistani friends to return criminals and those who violate immigration laws.
She said that the extradition of criminals is part of the new British plan to deal with immigration.
To whom will the agreement apply?
This Agreement shall apply to persons who are citizens of either Pakistan or the United Kingdom but shall not apply to persons having dual citizenship.
According to officials, under this agreement, if a person has been convicted by a Pakistani court but is residing in the UK, the government will be able to bring them back from there. Similarly, if someone has committed a crime in the UK and has been convicted by a court there, but has come to Pakistan, the government of Pakistan will be bound to extradite him to the UK.
Number of Pakistani prisoners in British prison
According to the British government data, Pakistanis are the seventh largest number in the prisons there, which is three percent of the total foreign prisoners.
Does this agreement have anything to do with Nawaz Sharif?
It should be noted that the work on this agreement was started by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government and the general impression was that such an agreement would pave the way for the return of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and former Finance Minister Ishaq Dar. However, according to the Pakistani and British authorities, this agreement will not apply to them because they are both residing in the UK on medical grounds.
On the other hand, Britain has said long before such agreements with Pakistan that it will not allow such agreements to be used for political purposes, and has also been guaranteed by Pakistan.
Who will benefit from the agreement?
Experts say that the real benefit of this agreement has been to the UK, which has hundreds of Pakistanis in its prisons or thousands of people outside the prisons who are criminals in Pakistan but are benefiting from public money there. Now Britain will send thousands of people to Pakistan, while the number of such people in Pakistan is very less.
According to experts, Britain has signed agreements with various countries during the last two years, the main reason for which is to remove all those people who have a criminal mentality and are a threat to society from their country. Only the United Kingdom is likely to benefit from this agreement.
Experts also say that the agreement is a public welfare agreement in any case, whether it benefits British citizens or a Pakistani beneficiary, but no such person, including Nawaz Sharif, can be brought back to Pakistan by this agreement. A person may be sent to the UK if he is politically connected and claims that the cases against him are political in nature.
