Pak ‘offer’ to Britain: ‘Will accept sex scandal convicts if you hand over anti-Munir activists!’
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: In a quid pro quo move, Pakistan has reportedly proposed to the UK to accept the return of convicted members of Pakistani ‘grooming gangs’ in exchange for Britain extraditing two high-profile anti-Asim Munir dissidents: former PM Imran Khan’s aide Shahzad Akbar, and a Pakistani army whistleblower, Major Adil Raja.
Islamabad said it would accept the return of convicted members of the Pakistani grooming gangs, such as Qari Abdul Rauf and Adil Khan, in exchange for Britain extraditing the two high-profile anti-Asim Munir political dissidents, US-based independent outlet, Drop Site News, reported.
Shahzad Akbar and Adil Raja have been living in exile in the UK since April 2022. They are trenchant critics of the ‘hybrid regime’ of “Field Marshal” Syed Asim Munir-led military and his puppet Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
Grooming gangs in the UK were networks of predominantly Pakistani men who targeted mostly White minor girls, “groomed” and gang-raped them. These girls were threatened by the Pakistani men and passed on among themselves. The extent of the sex racket shocked the world. One girl was sexually assaulted by 30–40 men in one night.
The report came days after Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi met with the UK High Commissioner, and weeks after a wave of rumours involving jailed former PM Imran Khan prompted the government to aggressively denounce “fake news” circulating overseas. British PM Keir Starmer’s government has been pushing for the deportation of Rochdale grooming gang members like Qari Abdul Rauf and Adil Khan to Pakistan.
The sensitive issue was amplified over the past two years by technology tycoon Elon Musk, who claimed that “a quarter of a million” children in the UK were victims.
Until now, progress remained blocked by Pakistan’s longstanding refusal to take the men back and by the convicts’ attempts to renounce their nationality to avoid repatriation.
However, the fresh Islamabad offer suggests Pakistan may now be willing to break the deadlock—if it gets its hands on the two key dissidents it has long tried to silence.
The said ‘proposal’ emerged after a December 4 meeting in Islamabad between Naqvi and UK High Commissioner Jane Marriott. Official statements described the talks as focused on “security cooperation,” tackling “fake news,” and repatriating undocumented Pakistanis.
While the Karachi-based Dawn reported that both parties “discussed the return of Pakistanis illegally residing in the UK,” nothing in the public readouts mentioned grooming gang offenders.
Drop Site News, citing unnamed sources, claimed that Naqvi framed the deportation of Rauf and Khan under the broad category of “Pakistanis illegally residing in the UK.”
The minister also stressed that Pakistan could not allow “slander and defamation against state institutions from those sitting abroad.”
In return for the extradition of Akbar and Raja, Pakistan would issue travel documents for the convicted offenders; the men were stripped of their UK citizenship in 2018 and rendered effectively stateless after they renounced their Pakistani nationality. Their deportation has been stuck ever since in the loophole.
Reacting to Naqvi’s formal submission to the UK High Commissioner, former PM Imran Khan’s aide Akbar wrote on X, “It has become increasingly clear that my publications, broadcasts, and political commentary on human rights abuses in Pakistan, the rise of authoritarianism, unconstitutional amendments, and the current impasse over military appointments have deeply angered the regime.”
New York City-based journalist, Waqas Ahmed, who contributed to the report on Drop Site News, said on X, “Normal people do not think like this, but the Pakistani government does. They have finally figured out a way to weaponize British grooming gangs against overseas activists.”
A Lahore-based person, Faraz, on X, said, “The Pakistani Government now uses grooming gangs as diplomatic leverage”.
The International Human Rights Foundation condemned what it called “transnational repression.” It described Pakistan’s actions as part of a wider “crackdown on dissent” by the regime. It noted that Raja was “court-martialled in absentia” and handed a 14-year sentence “without prior notice, legal representation, or the right to a defence,” urging UK authorities to consider these violations before acting on Islamabad’s requests.
Pakistani-origin grooming gangs in the UK were networks of predominantly Pakistani men who, from the 1990s onward, targeted vulnerable girls, mostly White, working-class teens, through coercion, manipulation, and extreme violence.
Victims were “groomed,” trafficked, and gang-raped across towns like Rotherham, Rochdale, Oldham, and Telford. Highly alarming cases include the Hussain brothers’ brutal abuse of dozens of girls.
The Rochdale grooming case, dating back to 2012, remains one of the UK’s most politically charged child exploitation scandals. Successive British governments have pushed to deport the offenders, but Pakistan repeatedly refused to accept them, arguing they no longer held Pakistani nationality and posed integration risks. Pakistan has a dual citizenship policy.
Currently, Pakistan and the UK have no formal extradition treaty, though Section 194 of the UK Extradition Act 2003 allows for special “ad hoc” arrangements.
