KARACHI        -           Terming Dr Aafia Siddiqui an asset for the country, the speakers at a ceremony held here on Monday to celebrate the birthday of daughter of the nation stressed that she should be released and given a chance to serve the nation.

Speaking on the occasion, Aafia Movement Pakistan leader and noted neuro physician of the country Dr Fowzia Siddiqui said this was Aafia’s 17thbirthday in the jail.

She reiterated her sister was innocent, and had been detained without any crime.

She said now when enemies of the past had reached a ceasefire in Afghanistan, and were contemplating brokering a deal to release thousands of prisoners, what is the logic of keeping Aafia Siddiqui in jail.

Dr Fowzia urged Prime Minister Imran Khan and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi to make serious efforts in Aafia’s case as now there was no hurdle in securing her release and repatriation. “Both these leaders should now take up the issue of Aafia’s release with their counterparts in the US and ensure an early and respectable repatriation of the daughter of Pakistan,” she asserted.

She said the ailing mother and innocent children of Aafia had suffered immensely due to her illegal detention, which cannot be described in words.

Going one step ahead, Dr Fowzia said keeping her sister in jail was a sheer violation of basic human rights, women rights in particular.

Dr Aafia Siddiqui was kidnapped from Karachi in 2003 along with her three minor children when she was going to Islamabad. She was then trafficked abroad along with her children.

After five years of denial, finally her ‘arrest’ was shown from Afghanistan in 2008, and then she was swiftly shifted to the USA and tried there in a court, despite the fact that she was not a US citizen, but of Pakistan.

Later, this US court, by negating all norms of justice, sentenced her to 86 years behind bars. Now she is in a solitary confinement in a US jail.

Dr Fowzia Siddiqui said that her sister Aafia was a world class educationalist, and she should be given a chance to return home and serve the nation and country in the field of education. Earlier, Asmat Siddiqui, mother of Aafia, greeted the guests who visited their house on the occasion of Aafia’s birthday.