Interior Ministry on Thursday has sealed the international aid group ‘Save the Children’ office in Islamabad and asked foreign staff to leave the country.
According to sources, Islamabad on today sealed ‘Save the Children’office in federal capital and the Interior Ministry has told the aid group that its foreign employees should to be out of Pakistan within fifteen days.
Sources also added that, the ministry has not given any particular reason to the NGO officials for the decision.
“We have sealed the office of Save the Children on government instructions,” Kamran Cheema, a senior government official told AFP.
Save the Children and other aid groups have come under government suspicion because of media reports they had come into contact with a Pakistani doctor, Shakil Afridi, who helped the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) hunt down bin Laden.
Read: Another legal blow for Dr Shakil Afridi
Bin Laden was killed in May last year when US special forces raided his hideout in the northern Pakistani town of Abbottabad. Pakistan, while a U.S. security ally, objected to the secret U.S. raid as a violation of its sovereignty.
Afridi was arrested soon after bin Laden was killed. He ran a vaccination campaign in Abbottabad and used cheek swabs to try to gather DNA from bin Laden.
After his arrest, Afridi was vilified by many Pakistanis for what they saw as his treason for helping the United States. He was sentenced to 33 years in jail this year.
Save the Children has been working in Pakistan for more than 40 years, employing more than 2,000 Pakistani staff. (Photo News / Agencies)
