Azeri held after he fails to produce documents

His passport had expired in 2009.

ISLAMABAD:

The city police on Tuesday arrested an Azeri from a market of F-10 after he failed to produce valid immigration documents. However the Azeri, who gave his name to the police as Mirda Madba Bayeh, produced a Pakistani CNIC that the police suspected was not genuine.

When police asked Bayeh for his passport, he could only provide a photocopy of it. This revealed that his Azeri passport issued in 2004 had expired in 2009, indicating that he was living in Pakistan illegally. He could also not satisfy the police about his source of income. He said he had been doing menial jobs at different places during his stay in the country. The police produced him before a court and obtained a physical remand.

His passport copies will be sent to the Azerbaijan embassy for verification and his CNIC would also be verified from National Database and Regulatory Authority, police said.

In the past, the city police arrested an Azeri couple who were involved in the smuggling of women from Central Asian States into Pakistan for prostitution. Police suspect Bayeh could also be a part of the group.

The Azeri couple arrested earlier last year was nabbed on the request of the Azeri government made through the Interpol as they were wanted in Azerbaijan for crimes of human smuggling and sex trade. They had been living in Pakistan for 10 years.

During investigations, the couple had provided the police with information on some of their accomplices who went undercover and could not be arrested, police said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 25^th, 2012.