KARACHI - Aafia Movement leader Dr Fowzia Siddiqui has regretted that Pakistani mother Dr Aafia Siddiqui has been deprived even of a telephonic talk with her family for two and half years.

In a statement issued here on Wednesday, she said that the family wanted to meet Aafia as it had even no brief telephonic contact with her for two and half years.

She appealed to President Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to consider the issue of Dr Aafia’s detention on humanitarian grounds and take necessary steps for her repatriation.

She said the children of Aafia and her ailing mother wanted to meet her. “In the past, they used to give Aafia an opportunity to briefly talk to the family on telephone, but for the past two and half years this brief telephonic contact has also been severed,” Fowzia lamented.

She said the government of Pakistan had allowed a meeting of Indian spy Kulbushan Yadav with her wife and mother on December 25, on the occasion of the birth anniversary of Quaid-e-Azam.

She said although this step on humanitarian grounds was laudable, but at the same time, she said, one must not forget that Yadav had also killed many innocent Pakistanis and his crimes had already been proved and the Pakistanis demanded his execution as soon as possible. “But still the government of Pakistan, by providing him an opportunity to meet his family, has set a noble example of upholding human values,” she commented. But, she added, on the other hand Pakistanis were concerned about the plight of noted Pakistani woman scientist Dr Aafia, who had been languishing in foreign jail for the last 14 years. Dr Fowzia said that noted legal experts from different parts of the world, including former US Attorney General Ramsay Clark, had already demanded the release of Aafia due to her innocence. “But she is still languishing in jail,” she protested.

She also appealed to the human rights activists of the whole world to raise a strong voice for respecting the basic human rights of Dr Aafia Siddiqui, which are being openly violated.