Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar said on Sunday that three special convoys had been arranged to bring back 540 Pakistani students from Kyrgyzstan.
“Around 130 students have arrived in Pakistan through international commercial flights,” Foreign Minister Dar, and Information Minister Ataullah Tarar, said at a press conference in Lahore. So today three commercial flights, special flights are arranged. Through these 540 students, more students can return, so the total is 670.”
He further said that the government has also spoken to the Air Force today and said that flights will also be conducted. “The capacity of the flight will be around 130 and that’s why the embassy has informed the students […] So far about 50 students have informed the embassy that they want to board this flight,” he said.
The development comes after more than 100 students arrived in Lahore following mob violence in the Central Asian country’s capital, Bishkek, which left five Pakistani students injured, according to Kyrgyzstan’s health ministry.
Kyrgyz police said Friday that hundreds of Kyrgyz men had gathered in the Central Asian capital to quell violence in a building housing foreign students, including Pakistani nationals.
According to the Pakistani Embassy in Bishkek, on May 13, foreign students living in the Kyrgyz capital, including from Pakistan, were attacked by locals after a clash with Egyptian citizens. “against foreigners”, which began on Friday night in Bishkek, ended early Saturday morning after an agreement was reached with the rebels.
On Saturday, Pakistan summoned Kyrgyz representative Melis Moldaliyev to the Foreign Office and demanded “all possible measures” to protect the students, who asked the embassy to stay inside until the situation worsened.
About 140 Pakistani students living in Bishkek arrived in Lahore on Saturday night, according to a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi received them at Allama Iqbal International Airport.
Speaking to the press with Dar Muqam and Minister of Information Attaullah Tarar, he told the Kyrgyz Foreign Minister that a total of four foreign students, including four or five Pakistanis, had been injured.
The foreign minister said his Kyrgyz counterpart, the president and chief of cabinet, was monitoring the situation and there was “complete peace” that there would be no more problems on Saturday.
Foreign students are forced to sit and talk with Kyrgyz students, Dar was quoted by the foreign minister as saying that the opposition party often campaigns against foreign students.
He (Kyrgyz FM) said, “We respect you as a brother country […] they (the opposition) are against the government’s policies,” Dar said. Paid bloggers and paid social media; We don’t know what the agenda is,” Dar promised his colleagues there.
“The Foreign Minister has lied to me on social media that God forbid a Pakistani student has died. “I assure you that no student has died in Pakistan,” he said.
