Pakistani girl commits suicide/Appeal for release of her parents

Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has obtained information that a girl whose parents have been detained in India committed suicide on November 3, 2008 due to the hardship of taking care of her sisters. We ask for your participation to join the petition asking for both prime ministers to take steps to release the detainees.

We earlier reported that 61 Pakistanis have been detained since May 2008 for alleged forgery of visa documents, which were according to them, issued by visa agents in Pakistan. (AHRC-UAG-013-2008)

SUGGESTED ACTION:
Please write letters to the prime ministers of Pakistan and India asking them to take steps to release the detainees who are also victimised by visa agents in Pakistan.

To support this appeal, please click here:

A Petition to the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan

Dear _____,

PAKISTAN/INDIA: A young girl commits suicide in protest as her sisters starve and her parents and brother are detained indefinitely in India

A 16 year-old girl committed suicide on November 3, 2008, to protest against the increasingly desperate situation of her parents and eight year-old brother, detained in India's Jodhpur prison since May, and of her sisters left behind in Pakistan. Ms. Saba Hussain is the daughter of Mr. Mohammad Hussain (Passport number AC 370290, Visa Number P 756531), who has been arrested for the forgery of visa documents.

Hussain and his family entered India (through Mona Bao to Sao Jan city from Karachi) on March 28, 2008, and traveled freely within the country before being arrested on forgery charges on their return to the border in May. The family says that they were unaware of fraudulent changes that visa agents had made to their visas.

Hussain and his wife had left six girls in Karachi, Pakistan with his 80 year-old mother. Before going to India they had put aside enough food for a month, but seven months later the girls have nothing left to live on. Because the household is entirely female there is little the girls can do to get money. They have no male protection in a society that requires it, and to try to arrange loans would leave them vulnerable to abuse. Relatives taunted the girls, though they helped them for a short time. However now the siblings--most of which have had to leave school--are growing increasingly desperate, as demonstrated by Saba's suicide.

Other than the deceased girl, the daughters are Isha, 7, Aqsa, 10, Wajiha, 12 and Farah Naz, 20 years old. The mother, Mrs. Yasmeen Hussain, 45, (Passport number: KC 196391, Visa number: P 756529) and Master Abdul Karim are with Mohammad in prison.

There are increasing indications that visa fraud is coming from the nexsus between criminal agents in Karachi and members inside Islamabad's Indian High Commission. The distance between the two cities encourages people to use courier-agent services for visas, and some are being duped with insubstantial or forged products, and then arrested when they travel. They are often freely allowed into the country, allowed to travel between cities (and police stations) unchecked, but are stopped and asked for bribe money on their way out. Those that cannot afford it are arrested. There are currently at least 61 persons detained in Indian jails under this charge, some of them children.

I urge that the Indian government acknowledge the severe flaws in such cases, and that authorities both sides of the border thoroughly investigate the corruption that is allowing the visa scams to take place, and for innocent people to be jailed. The physical and emotional toll taken on these people and the families they leave behind is severe, as demonstrated by the suicide of Saba Hussain.

I demand that the Hussains and their young son be returned home to mourn the death of their daughter, and rebuild their household. The family must be compensated and offered rehabilitation for their ordeal. This must also take place for the 61 or so other Pakistanis detained in India under the same insubstantial charge.

Yours sincerely,

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PLEASE SEND YOUR LETTERS TO:

1. Dr. Manmohan Sigh
Prime Minister
PMO, Room number 152, South Block
New Delhi
INDIA
E-mail: pmosb@pmo.nic.in
Fax: +91 11 23019545

2. Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani
Prime minister
Prime Minister House
Islamabad
PAKISTAN
E-mail: webmaster@infopak.gov.pk
Tel: +92 51 920 6111
Fax: +92 51 922 1596

Thank you.

Urgent Appeals Programme
Asian Human Rights Commission (ua@ahrchk.org)