Student visas fuel asylum in UK

FIA reports 10,000 Pakistanis filed claims in Britain

ISLAMABAD:

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Director General Dr Usman Anwar on Tuesday revealed that as many as 10,000 Pakistanis travelled to the United Kingdom on student visas and subsequently applied for political asylum.

The details were revealed during a meeting of the National Assembly (NA) Standing Committee on Interior, held under the chairmanship of Member of the National Assembly Raja Khurram Nawaz.

The session included a detailed briefing on illegal immigration, passport policy, and proposed reforms in criminal laws.

The revelation came after British High Commissioner to Pakistan Jane Marriott last week expressed concern over the rising number of Pakistani nationals applying for political asylum in the UK, noting that nationals currently feature among the top nationalities in such applications.

Jane regretted that many of these cases were linked to misinformation and exploitation by unauthorised intermediaries rather than genuine eligibility.

Addressing the committee, DG FIA said individuals illegally going abroad were bringing disrepute to Pakistan, adding that several countries, including those in the European Union, had raised the issue with Islamabad.

He noted that 580 Pakistanis who travelled to Belarus had not returned, while 7,000 Pakistanis went to Azerbaijan on visit visas and also failed to come back. Anwar added that 175 arrested Pakistanis had been repatriated from Libya.

Anwar further said a new human trafficking route via Malaysia and Uzbekistan had also emerged. During 2025, he said, 39,786 individuals attempting to travel abroad without documents were offloaded, while more than 3,000 were stopped from travelling on the basis of the stop list and Interpol alerts. He said that there had been a 75% reduction in organised begging and a 31% reduction in the use of fake documents.

Meanwhile, State Minister for Interior Talal Chaudhry informed the committee that illegal immigration from Pakistan had decreased by 47%, a decline he said was confirmed by both Europe and the United States.

Chaudhry added that further facilitations would be introduced in the coming days and that a new policy had been prepared regarding lost passports. He said if a passport was repeatedly reported lost, the matter was treated as suspicious and that every such case was investigated. He also noted that incidents of identity being sold occur worldwide.

Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar, briefing the committee on proposed reforms in criminal laws, said the matter should be taken up in detail after the budget. Stating that although 80-year-old laws were not necessarily bad and remain effectively implemented in many countries, Tarar noted that changes to the laws were unavoidable in view of modern technology and new requirements.