RAWALPINDI: As many as 70 Pakistanis, including two women, who were deported from the UK arrived at the Islamabad airport on Wednesday.

They were escorted by 140 British security officials during their journey.

After handing the deportees over to the Pakistani immigration authorities, the UK security officials returned to their home country.

A senior official of Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) immigration wing told Dawn that a special flight with 70 Pakistani illegal immigrants overstaying in the UK landed here at Benazir Bhutto International Airport on Wednesday.

He said two women had been overstaying in the UK as none of them was involved in any crime either in the UK or in Pakistan. All of them were allowed to go home after brief questioning.

The immigration official said that as many as 140 security officials from UK were guarding the Pakistani deportees in the flight since they left the Heathrow airport for Islamabad.

He said the strategy of deploying two security personnel on one passenger was in line with the standard operating procedure (SOP).

“They don’t take risk of any trouble created by passengers especially in the middle of the journey and therefore they deployed two security personnel for one person,” the immigration official said.

He said all of the deportees were allowed to go to their homes after brief questioning.

Published in Dawn, May 14th, 2015

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