Daily Times

Sir: I was shocked to learn about the plight of Mr Khair Muhammad, one of the officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who was working at the consular section of the Embassy of Pakistan in The Netherlands. Mr Khair Muhammad was mentally tortured with such severity that he was hospitalized due to a nervous breakdown. The story does not end here. While he was coping with the mental agony at the hospital, his family was served a notice to vacate their house. Secondly, the hospital was issued a letter that the Pakistani Embassy would not pay for hospital expenses, which the Embassy is bound to pay for its officials. Thirdly, he was asked to relinquish the job at the Embassy and go back to Pakistan immediately. His wife told media that her husband had been facing incessant mental pressure for the last several months and was threatened, terrorized, and attempts made to implicate him in fake allegations when he refused to be part of the corruption that was rampant in the visa section. Can we compare how the Indian diplomat in New York was defended by India and how this Pakistani official was treated by his own Pakistani bureaucrats? This reveals the prevailing mindset of our unbridled bureaucrats who consider the non-commissioned officials as their private slaves and treat them according to their whims. The higher authorities are requested by the children of the hospitalized official to intervene and save their father from further mental agony.

M YOUSIF TUNIO

Islamabad