By: Bushra Zulfiqar
I was in Islamabad when I first heard the news of UK based Pakistani students being arrested by the British police on charges of terrorism. As the details came out, it was nine of them arrested in anti-terror raids from different parts of England and as the Prime Minister Brown termed were guilty of hatching a very big plot against the UK. Being myself a Pakistani studying in England, my first reaction was that of disbelief and shock to say the least. I was completely aware of the academic, financial and logistical struggle it involves to become a student in Britain. But then more than that the Pakistanis are an extra ordinary community in the Britain, have been so for decades now. Out of a sixty million population in UK, there are two million Muslims and about 900,000 of them are of Pakistani origin. Not just the British but the whole world can never become oblivious to their proud achievements and rich contributions in the fields of economics, law, medicine, sciences, history, culture, arts and research. But for these caught Pakistani students, they were not only kept in the illegal custody of the British authorities for thirteen days but were also physically and mentally tortured. They were not allowed to contact their families back home who quite understandably faced an immensely difficult period. And on one fine morning after thirteen days of interrogation and intelligence checks, these students were released by the embarrassed authorities as no charge could be proven against them. Continue reading »