FIA launches crackdown on human smugglers

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has launched a crackdown on human smugglers across the country on the basis of information gleaned from illegal immigrants upon their arrival from abroad.

According to an FIA spokesperson, the immigration staff deployed at Karachi Airport questioned four passengers who returned from various countries. They were identified as Ahsan Shabbir, Mu-hammad Bashir, Aun Muhammad and Haseeb Khaliq. They are residents of Gujranwala and Guja-rat. Their names were included in the PNIL list. They arrived at Karachi Airport through interna-tional flights. They had travelled from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Azerbaijan on Umrah and visit visas. The agents later transported them to Mauritania via Senegal through illegal means and routes.

According to the initial investigation, an attempt was made to send them to Spain via sea route. The passengers refused to go by the sea route due to the recent violent incidents and the boat acci-dent and preferred to return to Pakistan. The illegal immigrants had settled deals with agents for millions of rupees for transporting them to Spain.

FIA is investigating the illegal immigrants about agents and facilitators. According to the initial in-vestigation, the agents belong to Peshawar, Bahawalpur and Gujranwala.

The FIA has launched a crackdown on agents upon the pointation of the passengers.

The authorities have requested citizens to go abroad by securing visa from the concerned country's embassy and do not hand over personal documents to irrelevant individuals. FIA has also requested the citizens to visit the nearest FIA circle to identify elements involved in human trafficking.

Federal Investigating Agency sprang into action after two back-to-back incidents of vessel sinking in Greece and inhumane treatment in Morocco left dozens of Pakistan illegal immigrants dead, stoking much outcry over the government's efficiency to defang the network of human smugglers.

The FIA took into custody the survivors of Morocco boat tragedy when they were repatriated from abroad and grilled them to disclose details of those involved in the racket.

Survivors of the Morocco boat tragedy narrated a harrowing tale of "inhuman treatment" meted out to them by the human smugglers, officials said.

The officials said, they paid Rs2.2 to 3.5 million each to the agents – who belonged to different parts of Punjab for travelling to Spain. Initially, they were sent to Dubai and then Ethiopia and Senegal on visa. From Senegal they were sent to Spain by sea.

"After completing half the journey by air, they were taken to Senegal, from where they were hand-ed over to the human smugglers for onward travel of Mauritania," an official said. He added that the smugglers started torturing them from the third day of their journey on a small boat.

According to the official, the victims endured hunger and thirst. They revealed that the smugglers would throw the sick passengers overboard. The passengers said that on the last day, when the boat sank, the conditions were so worse that they had to drink seawater.