24 September 2004	Friday	08 Shaban 1425

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 23: The British government has conveyed to Islamabad that some senior government officials and important political figures were involved in sending people illegally to the UK.

This was stated by British High Commissioner to Pakistan Mark-Lyall Grant while speaking to reporters at a certificate distribution ceremony at the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Headquarters on Thursday.

The high commissioner said: "I will not disclose names of the persons involved in the menace of human smuggling, but the relevant information about their involvement has been shared by Pakistani authorities." However, Pakistani authorities did not react one way or the other to the statement of Mr Grant. Secretary Interior Tariq Mehmood and FIA Director-General Mohib Asad were also present on the occasion, but they did not deny the allegations.

Former interior minister Makhdoom Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat in a statement last month had also said that some political personalities of Punjab were involved in human smuggling.

The British envoy said there were many ways to send people illegally to the UK and seeking political asylum was one of them. "Last year 2,500 Pakistanis had applied for political asylum in Britain, but all of them were rejected," he said.

The British high commissioner said his government was ready to help Pakistan in controlling human smuggling. The British government, he said, would donate equipment for detection of fake documents. The cost of the equipment is stated to be Rs10 million.

The equipment is being installed for the first time in three main airports of the country to check the menace of human smuggling and travelling on forged documents. Earlier, speaking to the 60 women immigration workers of the FIA, who completed three-day course at the FIA Academy, the Secretary Interior Tariq Mehmood said Pakistan gave ders and stop human smuggling.

FIA Director-General Mohib Asad said the FIA Academy was holding 23 different courses for the agency's officials so that they could meet new challenges. The batch of 60 women immigration workers was formed on trial basis and more would be trained and deployed at airports in future. The FIA director-general told the women immigration workers that the government was ready to increase their salaries.