The Home Office has announced plans to divert more visa applications to its office in Abu Dhabi in site of the massive backlog of over 5,000 Pakistani applications at the centre. The announcement also claimed that recent reports that Pakistani applications would soon return to the Islamabad immigration office were in fact erroneous and that there were no plans to do so.

Earlier this week the UK Home Sectary Alan Johnson had stated that processing for Pakistani applications would be moved back to Islamabad after crisis talks with local authorities who focussed on the recent spate of violent protests around the country by mainly Pakistani students who have been outraged by recent delays in issuances. The issue became widespread last week as new rules took effect from October 1st which, along with the delays, meant hundreds of Pakistani students missed starting class at UK universities on time.

In September last year the decision was made to move the application centre offshore in the wake of the Marriott Hotel bombing, which took place just a few hundred metres from the British Embassy.

According to the UKBA the reason for delays was due to technical limitations with the Abu Dhabi processing system. Similar troubles have been experienced worldwide by the UKBA whose online processing system has been widely affected by poor internet connections.

The UKBA has further announced that the Abu Dhabi office would soon by handling more applications, mainly from Iran. Some Pakistani officials have queried why the UK continues to favour offshore processing when other countries such as the US do so within Pakistan with no problems.

The number of staff at the Abu Dhabi has grown from 45 to 146 since the start of the year. The office deals with around 2,000 applications every week with only one third accepted. Another third is thrown out due to document fraud or false papers.

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