LAHORE, April 14: The Federal Investigation Agency director-general has directed immigration and passport cell officials to treat deportees as victims and not to register cases against them unless they are proved guilty.

The officials have been asked not to register a case against a deportee, who is unaware of the validity of his travel documents prepared by a fake agent or an illegal recruitment agency. They have been further directed to consider an 'innocent' deportee a witness and take stringent action against the person\agency involved in the preparation of fake documents.

The FIA usually registers a case against a deportee without verifying his\her alleged involvement in the tampering with the passport. A large number of deportees have been booked under the Human Trafficking Ordinance (HTO) since its promulgation in 2000.

Sources said the directive was issued on reports that the human smugglers, who were active especially in the developing areas, were befooling the innocent people by promising them to send them to greener pastures.

The illegal recruitment agencies are also reportedly arranging the travel of a number of people abroad, especially in the Middle East, on the pretext of providing jobs there.

These agencies prepare fake recruitment contracts and often disappear after charging huge amounts from the aspirants. In such cases, the victims, mostly labourers, have no idea about the intentions of the agencies they deal with.

According to a report, the illegal recruitment agencies and fake travel agents in Pakistan are sending over 100,000 people abroad annually through illegal means.

More than 10,000 Pakistanis are said to be languishing in different prisons of the UK, the US, France, Italy, Canada, Spain, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and South Africa on charges of possessing invalid documents.

FIA Deputy Director Mushtaq Sukhera told Dawn that the innocent deportees would benefit from the implementation of the directive. He said the decision was meant to provide maximum relief to the innocent deportees. However, he said, the agency would not spare those deportees, who were involved in the preparation of the fake documents.