A student from Overseas Pakistanis Foundation College in Islamabad has refused to take the award from Federal Minister for Overseas Pakistanis, Dr Farooq Sattar, to mark her protest against the governments supine attitude to get Dr Aafia Siddiqui released from US custody. Although it was the government that was the object of her vexation, the student was justified in showing her disappointment before him since he was its representative, and a cabinet member. Indeed this should set alarm bells ringing in concerned official quarters. There is a strong public perception that the authorities, by kowtowing to the US in every conceivable way, have left Pakistanis in the cold. The incident at the college was basically a reflection of the feeling that the US security forces, with the active help of their Pakistani counterparts, can go about their hideous ways, picking up innocent citizens even of the stature of Dr Aafia, who is an MIT graduate and a neuroscientist. The government must launch a diplomatic offensive to secure the release of Dr Aafia Siddiqui because the charges, as the trial is showing, are patently false. Should the government wait when the FBI has itself confirmed to a US court that it could not find her fingerprints on the gun alleged to have been used by her?