GUJRAT, July 8: The Gujrat district coordination officer and high-ups of regional passport office have failed to recover deportation/repatriation charges from those residents of Gujrat, Mandi Bahauddin and Jhelum who were deported to Pakistan from different countries on official expenses and owed hundreds of thousands of rupees to the government.

Information gleaned by this correspondent revealed that during the last six years, several hundred residents of Gujrat, Mandi Bahauddin and Jhelum had been deported from Ankara and Istanbul (Turkey), Ashgabat, Nairobi, Rome, Tashkent, Amman, Morocco and Moscow on account of possessing fake travel documents. They had been sent to these cities/countries by human traffickers.

The office of the Immigration and Passports, Islamabad, had sent a list of several hundred deportees to the Gujrat DCO and authorities of the passport office in November last with a request to make arrangements for the recovery of repatriation charges from them. But, after the passage of nine months, not even a single deportee had deposited any penny with exchequer.

Sources in the passport office told this correspondent that the executive district officers (revenue) of Gujrat, Jhelum and Mandi Bahauddin had been repeatedly requested through written letters to help them in recovering the deportation charges.

According to a letter No.5/2/02-GT written to EDO (Revenue) Gujrat on Jan 16, 2003: “kindly refer to the subject noted above and find below a list of 46 persons deported back to Pakistan from different countries on government expenses along with detail of amount to be recovered from them. These deportees are bound to deposit the money spent on them by the Pakistani Missions abroad but in vain. They were advised on so many occasions, through different letters, to deposit their dues but they failed to comply with their commitments,” the letter concluded.

The names of some of the deportees and recoverable amount from them are as under:

Muhammad Saleem (Rs 12,986), Sabir Hussain (Rs 13,074), Zafar Iqbal (Rs 3,702), Muhammad Afzal ( US $ 265), Naeem Ehsan (Rs 1,000), Liaqat Ali (Rs 1,000), Altaf Hussain (Rs 8,620), Basharat Ali (Rs 6,014), Imran Waheed (Rs 20,053), Muhammad Shahzad (Rs 8,606), Jamshed Shah (Rs 10,911), Akbar Ali (Rs 10,911), Asif Hussain Shah (Rs 11,799), Muhammad Usman (Rs 6,014), Riaz Ahmad (Rs 6,014), Muhammad Asghar (Rs 6,014), Muhammad Munir (Rs 6,014), Muhammad Ishaq (Rs 13,074), Saghir Ahmed (Rs 3,702), Muhammad Ashraf (Rs 6,014), Mian Khan (Rs 6,014), Shahbaz Tariq (Rs 6,014), Muhammad Irfan (Rs 6,014), Rizwan Aslam (Rs6,014), Muhammad Khan (Rs 6,014), Zafar Ali (Rs 6,014), Wasim Akhtar (Rs 6,014), Zaheer Ahmad (Rs 15,540), Ansar Iqbal (Rs 13,420), Liaqat Ali Sajjad (Rs 14,295), Mian Amjad (Rs 11,799), Mazhar Iqbal (Rs 6,014), Shahbaz Akhtar (Rs 6,014), Farooq Mazhar (Rs 3,702), Muhammad Asif (Rs 3,702), Shahbaz Hussain, Shabbir Faisal, Shamsher Khan, Khalid Babar, Muhammad Khan, Muhammad Raees, Muhammad Ashraf, Amir Hussain, Abdul Jabbar, Muhammad Asif and Shafqat Ali owe Rs 3,702 each, Muhammad Akhtar (Rs 12,248), Muhammad Akram ($ 280), Muhammad Ashraf (Rs 4,634), Ghulam Ali (Rs 9,261), Muhammad Ashraf (Rs 6,014), Ghulam Abbas (Rs 6,014), Muhammad Niazi (Rs 6,842), Muhammad Imran (Rs 9,261), Riaz Ahmad Riaz (Rs 9,261), Tahir Mahmood (Rs 9,261), Mushtaq Ahmad (Rs 3,702), Shahbaz Ashraf (Rs 6,347), Yousaf Kanwal (Rs 6,347), Amjad Iqbal (Rs 6,347), Muhammad Iqbal (Rs 6,014), Nasir Ali (Rs 6,014) and Basharat Ali owe Rs 6,014. Sources in the DCO office claimed that the DCO had never taken any step for the recovery of repatriation charges.