UK persuades Pakistan as it attempts to deport grooming gang leader Shabir Ahmed

The United Kingdom government officials are in talks with Pakistan about the growing possibility of deporting a Rochdale grooming gang ringleader to the country. The Pakistani man named Shabir Ahmed was released from jail this week after he was convicted on multiple counts of rape and sexual offences against girls in 2012.

Ahmed had dual British-Pakistani citizenship. However, he was stripped of his British passport following his conviction. However, this week his victims were told that Ahmed could not be deported to Pakistan because of a 55-year-old law that bars his removal.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has asked the country's home secretary to review the case following calls for the law to be changed to allow Ahmed to be removed from the UK. Interestingly, Andy Burnham, who is widely expected to replace Keir as prime minister this month, was among those calling for Ahmed to be deported.

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When asked about the progress in the case, a No. 10 spokesperson said: "We have raised this issue with our counterparts in Islamabad, and we are committed to doing everything possible to deport foreign national offenders, and we're clear that they should have no place in this country."

"As previous governments have found, this necessarily involves the agreement of the receiving country - which has not always been possible - but we are currently working across government to explore all possible options in this case," he added.

UK tries to deport Ahmed

The British Prime Minister's spokesperson also noted that the United Kingdom would "do everything in our power to remove" Ahmed; they stressed this was "clearly a complex case with implications beyond this specific incident". According to the BBC, Ahmed left prison on Thursday and is now in 24-hour staffed accommodation, wearing a GPS-electronically monitored tag.

Meanwhile, the Home Office said that any breach of Ahmed's strict licence conditions would result in him being immediately returned to prison. However, some of his victims said that they were "frightened" by his release, and they felt "unsafe".

It is pertinent to note that Ahmed came from the United Kingdom in the late 1960s and held dual British and Pakistani citizenship at the time he was convicted. His British citizenship was eventually stripped by the court after he was jailed, as it was expected that he would be deported soon after his sentencing was complete.

But what went wrong?

Earlier this week, victims of the gang were told provisions under the Immigration Act 1971 barred the removal of any Commonwealth citizen who arrived in the UK before 1973 and had been in the country for five years. According to the BBC, the UK government is considering whether the 1971 law could be changed through an amendment to the Immigration and Asylum Bill, which is currently making its way through Parliament.

However, once any legislative hurdles are cleared at home, the British government would be facing the diplomatic challenge of getting Pakistan to agree to accept Ahmed's deportation to the country. This would require the cooperation of the government of Pakistan, something that has been proved to be unfruitful in the past.

It is pertinent to note that Pakistan has previously refused to take back two of Ahmed's co-ringleaders in the nine-man Rochdale grooming gang. Qari Abdul Rauf and Adil Khan could not be deported despite being stripped of their British citizenship in 2018.

Ahmed was jailed for 22 years in 2012, after it was found that he was one of nine men in the Rochdale grooming gang trial convicted of offences against children. At that time, the police recorded that as many as 50 girls could have been victims of the gang, and that many of them had come from chaotic, "council estate" backgrounds.

Judge Gerald Clifton said victims were treated "as though they were worthless and beyond any respect" because they were not part of the gang's community or religion. Meanwhile, Greater Manchester Police said at the time there was no "racial or cultural" element to the crimes.