PESHAWAR, Aug 28: The Anti-Trafficking Unit (ATU) of the Federal Investigation Agency on Saturday night arrested two Afghan nationals on charges of possessing fake travel documents and recovered two children, who were waiting to be flown to Saudi Arabia.

The immigration authorities at the Peshawar International Airport on Thursday noon arrested three Afghans who were trying to board a Jeddah-bound flight on forge documents. The authorities arrested another Afghan national, who was facilitating their travel to Saudi Arabia.

The nine-year-old Torang was sent on Friday to Apwa Darul Amaan in Hashtnagari locality and a young woman, Fauzia, to Central Jail. The two suspects, Khairullah and Baryalay, were remanded to the FIA custody for three days by Judicial Magistrate Malik Amjad Rahim on Sunday, official sources said.

The FIA interrogators told Dawn that on information of Baryalay and Khairullah, the ATU team headed by Inspector Shaukat Khan raided Habibullah’s flat, the key suspect in the human traffickers’ gang.

The ATU searched the flat of Habibullah, brother-in-law of Baryalay, at Khyber Plaza in University Town area and found five computerised national identity cards, one green passport and four Afghan passports and some cheques at the place, official sources said.

“These original documents were of Habibullah’s family,” Baryalay confessed.

Habibullah was legal travel agent and authorised by the Saudi government to send Afghans for Umra, said Inspector Shaukat Khan, adding that the suspect had established his office in the name of Shirkat Khidamat-i-Siyahati Wa Tourism in Kabul.

In Pakistan, the key human smuggler had established links with Pakistani groups, particularly in Karachi, who were sending Afghans on forge documents to Gulf countries, the FIA official maintained.

Mr Shaukat added that the ATU interrogation team later recovered a diary from the possession of accused Khairullah, in which some addresses about the gang were mentioned.

On the information, the ATU raided an office at Golden Tower in Andar Shahr area of the walled-city and arrested another Afghan national Rehmatullah, an alleged member of the gang and recovered two Afghan kids Abdur Rasool and Abdul Wakeel, who were waiting for their turn to go to Saudi Arabia on bogus documents, the official sources said.

The raiding team also recovered fake Afghan foreign ministry documents and bogus stamps of the Afghan Consulate in Peshawar, they added.

“We are still interrogating the accuse and more arrest on their information is possible,” said Inspector Shaukat.

He maintained that some officials in the National Database Registration Authority (Nadra) and passport office here must be involved as the key human trafficker Habibullah and his family had got Pakistani ID cards and one green passport.

The official said that they were trying to contact the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) to send back the three children to Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia, where their families were presently working.

The under-custody Khairullah, while talking to this correspondent at the lock-up, said that he had paid Rs110,000 to one Afghan Mullah Alti, who was wanted by the FIA authorities in Islamabad.