Pakistan lawmakers cut short US visit over full body scanning

Miffed at being asked to undergo a full body scanning at an American airport, a group of Pakistani lawmakers have cut short their visit to the United States in protest, media reports said today.
  
The lawmakers returned to Pakistan in protest after refusing a body scan at the Dulles International Airport, some 40 kilometers west of Washington, the US capital, Geo TV quoted senator Abbas Khan Afridi, head of the delegation of the National Assembly and Senate, as saying.

Afridi told US-based Pakistani reporters in Washington that they were asked to undergo a body scanning but they refused, as they considered it an insult to parliamentarians of a sovereign country.
    
He said they were informed before their arrival in the US that they would not face any such discrimination during their visit at the invitation of US secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
    
The US introduced full-body scanner after a Nigerian man was charged with trying to blow up a US-bound airliner on Christmas Day last year by detonating explosives hidden in his underwear.

Pakistan has been included in the list of 14 countries whose nationals will undergo body scanning on arrival in the US.

The delegation arrived in the US on February 28 for a 15-day visit. But they were required to conduct full body scanning when they left Washington for another city. They canceled the trip after they refused to do so.