PESHAWAR, Oct 29: The passport circle of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) is interrogating a doctor for travelling illegally from France to Pakistan. "The doctor possessed a forged British passport showing him as Indian national," sources told Dawn here on Friday.

Initially, the Intelligence Bureau interrogated Mohammad Zareen Khan, a resident of Khadikhel Gurbuz village in Mohmand Agency, when he flew back to Pakistan in February this year after staying illegally in England, France, Belgium and Germany for more than four years, the sources said..

Although Mr Zareen belonged to Mohmand Agency, his family shifted to Faqirabad in Peshawar after a dispute with their relatives. The sources said that Mohammad Zareen travelled to Peshawar as Govind, son of Susheel Kumar, from Paris via Dubai.

According to the British passport he carried, he was a Briton of Indian origin. He got the Pakistani visa from Dubai as the embassy in Paris had refused visa to him, they added.

The IB started monitoring his activities because initially the officials had developed suspicion that he might be involved in anti-state activities, the sources maintained.

They added that the accused was interrogated several times by IB officials and when it found no anti-state purpose of his visit to the country, it asked the Faqirabad police to arrest him.

But Faqirabad police, without taking any legal action, handed him over to the passport circle of the FIA on Thursday, which presented the accused before Judicial Magistrate Waqar Ahmad Khan and obtained one-day stay order from the court here on Friday.

"I graduated from the Ayub Medical College in 1998 and proceeded to England the following year as I had failed to get a proper job in the country after becoming a doctor," Mr Zareen told this correspondent at the FIA lock-up.

He said he had worked in four countries of Europe and finally decided to come back, because his father Malik Swati Khan had some disputes with his uncles over property.

His passport had expired and to get a new passport he went to the Pakistan Embassy in Paris. But the official there asked him to get references of two Pakistani passport holders working in France.

"It was impossible for me as I only knew those Pakistanis who are working illegally in France," he said. Finally, some Pakistanis asked him to meet a person in Cali, a port town in France, who would arrange his visit to Pakistan, he claimed.

He met a person, who was from Rawalpindi or Gujrat and he made the bogus British passport in the name of Govind, he said. "This person is expert in his job as most of the illegally working Pakistanis get bogus passports from him for travelling back to Pakistan," he said. "You can get the passport of any country from him at very cheap price, around 300 euros," he claimed.

"Yes, the passport is almost like a genuine British passport," said FIR Inspector Shahid Ilyas. He said that the accused wanted to go back to France on the same passport, but had been arrested. He had got his Pakistan visit visa extended at the Passport Office in Hyderabad, but he did not travel on it.