ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani on Thursday urged the United Kingdom not to discriminate against Pakistani students, businessmen and travellers while processing their visa cases.

The prime minister noted that 41 per cent of Pakistani visa applicants’ cases were rejected according to a BBC report, as compared to the world average rejection of visas of 14 per cent by the British side.

Talking to Chris Grayling, British Shadow Home Secretary, who called on him at the PM House, the prime minister said that it had been brought to his attention that even visa cases of those students who were granted scholarships by him for higher studies in the UK had still not been issued visas.

He also urged the British side that passports of Pakistani businessmen, who apply for visas, should be returned to them for their travel to other countries while their visa cases were being processed and a system should be developed to expedite the processing, which in certain cases took more than 8-10-week period.

Dilating on the immigration issues being faced by the Pakistanis, the prime minister drew the attention of the world to 3.5 million Afghan refugees still residing on the Pakistani soil, totally forgotten by the world community.

These refugees are not only an economic burden on our economy, he added, but also a cause of concern vis-a-vis the security situation in the border areas. Gilani stated his government would further strengthen ties with the UK in political, defence, economic, trade, investment and counterterrorism fields under the agreed framework of Pakistan-UK strategic dialogue forcooperation. He thanked the British government for being the only country, other than Saudi Arabia, to fulfil its pledge of economic assistance made at the Tokyo Donors Conference last year and hoped that other countries will follow the British example to honour their commitments.

Chris Grayling, thanking the prime minister for his time, stated if the Conservative Party succeeded in the forthcoming general elections in the UK, the new government would devise a system to eliminate abuses in issuance of visas to enable genuine students, businessmen and travellers to get their visas without any encumbrance.

He regretted fake colleges and universities established in the UK by visa racketeers was the root cause of a stringent processing visa policy and his party, on taking over the government, would register all universities and colleges so that innocent visa seekers were not deceived or misled by them.