Pakistani in Oman prisons awaiting repatriation for years

The wife of a prisoner Muhammad Riaz had sold her Jewellery to buy a visa for Muhammad Riaz as he wished to go abroad and make meet ends due to poverty in Pakistan but he got arrested at the Oman Airport when he arrived there and had been jailed in the Muscat prison for the last 8 years.

Oman is one of the countries where over 231,685 Pakistanis work in the different fields and according to the Oman Embassy in Pakistan 302 Pakistani jailed in the Sumail and Razaq prisons, belonged to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, and Balochistan.

Tafseer, a prisoner told The Northern Post through an audio note from the Sumail prison that he and hundreds of other Pakistanis jailed in the jail for the years, sentenced for life, 25 years or more but 60 percent were innocent.

He said inmates of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa belong to Shangla, Peshawar, Swat, Malakand, Mardan, Charsada, Mohmand, and Bajaur, also the Punjab and Balochistan areas.

“We sell our bread in jail to buy cards for calling to Pakistan and talk to family, our families are also suffering back home and the government does not ask of us. We are Pakistani and anticipating from the incumbent government and Prime Minister Imran Khan,” He demanded.

Sadam Hussain, another prisoner, said he was arrested from his accommodation along with roommates in which, one of them was accused but the Oman police had arrested all of them.

He said in the Sultanat-I-Oman law appeal can submit for one in 40 days then innocent also declared accused if there was no one for appeal and it was the reason he spending his days in jail instead of the labor and earning for my children back in Pakistan.

He said when they fall ill the prison administration does not take them to the hospital for treatment even inmates died in the jail but no one to ask and also the prison administration mistreated and beating up them.

Bushra Bibi, the wife of Muhammad Riaz from Malakand, told that due to financial problems in the village her husband sold her jewelry for Rs 70,000 in December 2012 bought a visa, while his brother sent him a ticket and he left for Muscat but when he arrived there he was arrested in the airport.

“He told me via phone that someone in Islamabad had given me an envelope and asked that he has to give it to a person in Muscat but he was arrested when he arrived in Muscat Airport. Since then we are in deep distress,” She said.

She said that she had talked to Muhammad Riaz three days ago and he was asking about children and asking to talk with politicians to repatriate him from the jail because her both children daily asked about their father.

Muhammad Riaz’s mother, Parveen Fatima, said her husband had died soon after her son’s arrest and now she was also ill and their financial conditions also worst.

She said that she wanted to see her son in her life for which appeal to the government of Pakistan to repatriate her son as soon as possible, even they may have jailed him in Pakistani prison but bring him back.

Zahid Hafeez, spokesperson at the Oman embassy, when contacted he told this scribe that there were 516 inmates in the Sumail and Razaq prisons before December 31, 2019, and the current government had been repatriated 214 prisoners under the Royal pardon brought to home country and now left 302 in both jails.

He said, their officials in Oman visit the prisons twice a month and facilitate inmates, however, the government was making efforts to repatriate more prisoners.