The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has admitted that its officials along with Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) employees have been involved in a human smuggling ring that also worked in Europe, a local media house reported.
According to a recent report submitted by the FIA director general to the Interior Ministry and the Establishment Division highlights that the probe into the human trafficking case was done after a complaint was lodged by the British High Commission in 2014.
It was further reported that the report dated January 1, 2019, was “received by the Interior Ministry on Wednesday and it clearly blamed the ‘Anti-Human Trafficking Cell’ of FIA for not taking any action over the complaint”.
According to the complaint, “20 Afghan nationals caught at Heathrow airport were smuggled from Benazir Bhutto International Airport Islamabad (BBIAP).”
The report has blamed then FIA director Inam Ghani for ‘thrashing the inquiry’. “He being director of FIA Islamabad Zone removed legal barriers such as the checking of flights just to facilitate the human smuggling through BBIAP, without his connivance it was impossible for the PIA and FIA immigration staff at BBIAP to run the human smuggling network of Afghan nationals on fake Pakistani passports.”
The report added: “This matter was otherwise a national security threat in the prevailing circumstances of Afghan/Taliban playing havoc in the country.”
The report quoted in the local media report has said that “the inquiry into the matter did not proceed further and the accused in the initial inquiry continued to be posted at the same airport and the investigation was diverted on the grounds that the Afghan nationals did not pass through the FIA immigration counter”.
“It was stated in the investigation report that the Afghan nationals were smuggled out through the domestic departure longue bypassing the FIA immigration counter,” the report said and added that “these claims were proven false in later inquiries”.
Furthermore, according to an Interior Ministry official, “30 FIA officials who had been suspected to be involved in the human smuggling, had been suspended.”
