ISLAMABAD: in a letter o Rt Hon Grant Shapps M.P and UK Secretary of State for Transport, Yasmin Qureshi, an MP of Pakistan’s origin, has questioned the decision of the British government to keep Pakistan on its red list.
Ms Qureshi the letter said “ I write to you in my capacity as chair of the APPG on Pakistan and shocked over UK decision to keep Pakistan on the red list, while India , UAE, Qatar and Bangladesh are being removed to amber’’.
The British government decision of removing India, a country where corona is much, much deadlier rather Delta, a most dangerous variant emerged from there from its red list has received sharp reaction.
Ms Qureshi noted Pakistan’s current 7-day rolling average to infections are just 14 per 0.1 million , yet in India it is 20 per 0.1 million and likewise the number of the new cases is 1o times lower in Pakistan than India and 5 times lower than UK. She added the Delta variant that became so deadly and so prominent in UK originated directly from India.
She said ‘ Yet again, The UK government appears to be punishing Pakistan and rewarding the nations to which Britain stand to benefit economically. She reminded to the British authorities that this is identical situation to April last year when Pakistan was discriminated and India was rewarding though the corona related situation in India was worse than Pakistan. She said I have got the feeling that UK decision to keep Pakistan is a political decision and want to know when Britain is going to review Pakistan’s status to remove it from the red list.
The Pakistan government and Pakistani British, in particular, and others who have some reasonable level of sense in general, are shocked over UK decision of keeping Pakistan on the red list.
Ms Yasmin Qureshi’s letter to British secretary of State for Transport is one example. Other MPs of Pakistan’s origin do have identical views on the issue as of Ms Qureshi and want that UK should not show double standard to penalize Pakistan in the name of pandemic.
Islamabad has also raised the issue with concerned British authorities and demanded to remove Pakistan from the red list so that its citizen do not face undue hassle while travelling to UK and at the same time a large number of Pakistani British do not get the impression that UK was penalising Pakistan but granting concessions to India on the same subject.
Just a day before, Pakistan’s Dr Faisal Sultan, who is the advisor to the prime minister on Health, chided UK claims of ratio of vaccination vis a vis India and demanded of UK to remove Pakistan from its red list for creating of an impression of equal treatment to all the nations in its strategy on corona virus.