Pakistan

The deported: 42 get sent back from Greece, end up in jail

Majority of the deported belonged to Gujrat who were trying to slip into Greece when they were caught by coast guards.

Express December 18, 2011

ISLAMABAD:

Forty-two people were deported from Greece for attempting to enter illegally. Upon their arrival at Benazir Bhutto International Airport (BBIA) on Saturday, they were taken into custody by Federal Investigation Agency’s Anti-Human Trafficking Circle (AHTC) officials.

AHTC Gujranwala officials also arrested some deportees and shifted them to Gujranwala jails for further investigations. According to officials, a majority of the deported belonged to Gujrat who were trying to slip into Greece when they were caught by coast guards at a shipping port and detained for illegal entry.

“They used the Iran-Turkey route and were travelling with the help of a human trafficker,” said FIA immigration shift in-charge Khubaibullah Baloch.

He said two cases will be registered after the investigation concludes; the suspects will be booked for illegal and unauthorised travel to a foreign country while the trafficker responsible will be booked as well. An FIA official added that the deported were mostly from rural areas, uneducated and manipulated by traffickers.

During initial investigations, the suspects revealed that they were recruited by an agent from Gujrat who took Rs500,000 from each of them; they were sent to Karachi where another member of the trafficking network received them.

“We stayed in Karachi for a night and the next day we were transported to Gwadar via truck,” one of the deported told FIA officials. From Gwadar, they were then transported to Iran by another accomplice.

There, the traffickers had secret compounds where the deported were kept for a few days before being sent into Turkey illegally with help from agents operating in Iran and Turkey. They were caught at the Grecian border where they were detained for a few days before being sent back to Pakistan.

On arrival in Islamabad, they paid for their travel before being taken into custody. From the 42 deported citizens, 28 were from Gujrat, six from Faisalabad, three from Peshawar and Lahore and two from Rawalpindi.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 18^th, 2011.