ISLAMABAD: Govt asked to submit records of human smuggling case
By Our Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD, June 22: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the government to submit complete records within two days in a human smuggling case against a travel agent.
The directive was issued by a two-member bench comprising Justice Hamid Ali Mirza and Justice Mohammad Nawaz Abbasi during the hearing of a bail application of travel agent Malik Bashiruddin.
Three people were offloaded by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) from a Toronto-bound plane at the Lahore airport some time ago on charges of possessing bogus travelling documents.
During investigation, they allegedly told the FIA that each of them had paid Rs1.2 million to Rs1.5 million to Mr Bashiruddin for the fake documents. Mr Bashiruddin was later arrested and jailed.
His bail application was rejected by the trial court and later by the Lahore High Court, whose decision he has challenged in the Supreme Court. His counsel Maqbool Illahi Malik told the bench that all the three persons arrested at Lahore had retracted their confessional statements by nominating another person, named Rana Saleem, as the main accused in the case.
