Rochdale grooming gang fiends who abused girls as young as 12 still living in UK as Pakistan REFUSES to take them back
TWO prolific Rochdale grooming fiends are still living in the UK - because Pakistan refuses to take them back.
Qari Abdul Rauf and Adil Khan were part of a nine-strong gang of Asian men convicted of sex offences against vulnerable girls in 2012.
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Up to 47 girls as young as 12 were plied with alcohol and drugs and gang-raped across Rochdale during a two-year reign of terror.
Then-Home Secretary Theresa May ordered the pair to be sent back to Pakistan in 2014 as it would as it would be "conducive to the public good".
But ten years later, Rauf and Khan still remain in Rochdale where their victims are forced to live alongside them.
It has now emerged Pakistan is refusing to take the predators back, The Telegraph reports.
An official claimed it would be "extremely difficult' to allow in such dangerous criminals.
The battle has also been further complicated by Rauf and Khan renouncing their Pakistani citizenship.
After they both exploited a loophole by ripping up their passports, they became "stateless", which can block a deportation.
Rauf and fellow gang leader Khan, who got a 13-year-old girl pregnant, lost a lengthy fight in 2018 against deportation alongside a third member of the gang, Abdul Aziz.
They subsequently launched another bid - insisting the order breaches their human rights as they both have wives and children in the UK.
Their appeals were rejected but both have remained in Britain ever since.
Sources for the Interior Ministry have said "progress" could be made if the UK were to take part in talks.
They also suggested returning direct flights to the UK by its national airline PIA, which were suspended for safety reasons, could help.
But UK officials said this suggestion had not been raised in discussions.
The subject of grooming gangs has been thrust back into the spotlight this week following a bombshell report by Baroness Casey.
The scathing review found councils, police and the Home Office repeatedly "shied away" from dealing with uncomfortable questions on the ethnicity of rapists who targeted young girls.
Rauf and Khan were ringleaders of a prolific grooming gang in Rochdale, which has been plagued by sexual exploitation.
Khan got a 13-year-old girl pregnant and trafficked another girl, 15, to others - using violence when she complained.
He was sentenced to eight years in 2012 and released on licence four years later.
Dad-of-five Rauf trafficked a 15-year-old girl and raped her in a secluded area before taking her to a flat in Rochdale where others had sex with her.
He was caged for six years and released in November 2014 after serving two years and six months of his sentence.
A Home Office spokesman said it would do 'everything in our power' to deport foreign nationals who commit 'heinous' crimes in the UK.
He added: 'The UK and Pakistan are working in partnership on shared migration and return priorities.
"Both countries recognise and respect our common obligations to return those with no right to remain in our respective countries."
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