RAWALPINDI: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has widened the scope of its investigation into a recent attempt of human trafficking from the Benazir Bhutto International Airport.

The agency questioned the staff of the Pakistan International Airline, its own immigration officials besides arresting a technical ground staff member (TGS) of the national flag carrier on the charge of involving in the human trafficking.

It may be noted that on September 5, the FIA caught a man trying to fly to Toronto using a bogus boarding card from the airport.

The man was found already seated in the PIA aircraft before the passengers started boarding it for Toronto. The suspect had arrived from Karachi on the same plane as a domestic passenger and disembarked.

The man, who was identified as Mubarik Ahmed, failed to produce a valid boarding card for international travelling.

PIA officials being questioned how a man boarded Toronto-bound plane without boarding card

During the preliminary investigation, he said he had hid himself inside an ambo-lifter, which is used for carrying patients, in connivance with the PIA staff and later entered the plane.

Two PIA employees were taken into custody to determine their role in the scam. Raids were also being conducted to arrest a travel agent in Karachi.

A source close to the investigation said all the PIA staff members, who were on duty that day including the flight in-charge, were also investigated.

On the other hand, the PIA has started its inquiry into the case after one of its officials, identified as Khuram Hashmi, technical ground staff, was taken into custody by the FIA.

The FIA’s investigators have also been trying to establish the role of its own official who had travelled with the arrested man from Karachi to Islamabad reportedly to facilitate him on the PIA’s Toronto flight.

A spokesman for the PIA confirmed that Khuram Hashmi, a low grade employee of the airline, was arrested by the FIA in connection with the human smuggling attempt.

The source said after arriving in Islamabad the suspect disembarked from the plane along with other passengers.

However, instead of leaving the airport he sat in the ambo-lifter posing as a sick passenger allegedly in connivance with the ambo-lifter’s driver, Jamshaid.

The source said on getting the chance, the suspect was boarded on the flight as the check-in was just to be started for the Toronto flight.

It was a wheelchair loader who first spotted the man sitting alone in the plane and asked him for his boarding card which he was not having with him.

Later, he informed the PIA security staff about the presence of the man inside the plane.

In the meantime, a PIA traffic assistant, identified as Imtiaz Bacha, who was on duty at the stairs of the plane for checking the boarding cards of the passengers, asked Khuram Hashmi to go into the plane and give a seat to the man on the rear part of the plane.

In the meantime, the FIA staff rushed to the plane and spotted the man who could not produce his passport or any other travel document or boarding card.

Despite repeated attempts, the FIA director anti-human trafficking wing, Qudratullah, could not be contacted for comments.

PIA spokesman Mashood Tajwar confirmed that the airline management had taken action against three of its employees and suspended them.

Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2014