Syed Mussarat Khalil Saudi Gazette JEDDAH — In a meeting attended by Convener Syed Ehsan-ul-Haque of the advisory board of Pakistan Repatriation Council (PRC) on Monday at Kababish restaurant, the members were relieved to witness the smooth handover of power as per the constitution. Members of PRC congratulated Mian Mohammed Nawaz Sharif on the win of Muslim League (PML-N) and becoming the Prime Minister with big mandate. Overseas Pakistanis in the Kingdom are happy to see him as the prime minister for third time. Big challenges lie ahead of Sharif, such as to tackle terrorism, corruption, solve energy crisis, upliftment of economy without further IMF aid, inter provincial issues alonng with solving issues of Kashmir and stranded Pakistanis. We urge Nawaz Sharif to reactivate the Rabita Trust which was frozen by ex-President General Musharraf in 2001 and all the activity related to repatriation and rehabilitation of stranded Pakistanis were on hold since them. Once the trust is reactivated it can restart the process of construction of housing units in Punjab where the land was allocated during 1988 and thousands of housing units were constructed during 1993 while only 350 persons were repatriated and still most of the constructed houses are vacant. Since Rabita Trust already has fund which can start the process of construction of houses and arrange the repatriation initially of 3,000 destitute families (without any male members) who were already issued I.D. cards and promised to be repatriated that year. We pray for success of Sharif and his government, especially for solving the humanitarian issue of stranded Pakistanis with the assistance of Muslim World League. PRC has also submitted a proposal earlier for the settlement of stranded Pakistanis on self-finance. Members attending the meeting included Dr. Irfan Hashmi, Abdul Qayyum Wasiq, Engineer Ghazanfar Hassan, Shamsuddin Altaf, Engineer Syed Aslam Tanweer, Mohammad Amanatullah, Haroon Khalid, Riaz Ahmed, Burhan Siddiqui.
