Deportees have lunch at FIA office in Islamabad. — Dawn
Deportees have lunch at FIA office in Islamabad. — Dawn

RAWALPINDI: Syed Mubeen Shah, 22, from Gujrat was among a group of Pakistanis who intended to go to Greece in the hope of a better future. But after several months of detention in Turkey, he was deported to Islamabad along with 33 other people on May 26.

Mubeen left his college when he was in his second year and convinced his parents to arrange Rs250,000 which he paid to a travel agent for a journey to Europe which was full of risks.

“My mother sold her gold jewellery while my father sold a buffalo and arranged the amount,” Mubeen told Dawn.

Narrating his ordeal, he said he first went to Balochistan and then to Taftan, the official border crossing into Iran. On entering Iran, an agent put him, along with six other people, into the boot of a car and drove off.


Young Pakistanis narrate their ordeal at the hands of human smugglers; in European prisons


“After more than six hours, the agent dropped us near a mountain and asked us to cross it on foot. More than 12 hours later, we reached Dogo Bias in Turkey from where we were taken to Istanbul and handed over to another agent. The agent arranged a rubber boat for the onward journey to Greece.”

He said the boat was crowded and at one point it stopped functioning while at sea.

“As the boat was restarted and it entered the sea of Greece, we were captured by the police and detained in a basement for 12 days.”

He said there were 25 other Pakistani and 15 Algerian migrants detained in the basement. The authorities in Greece later handed over the illegal migrants to Turkey.

After reaching Islamabad, Mubeen was taken into custody by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).

When Mubeen’s father, Syed Azmat Shah, was contacted on telephone, he said he was thankful to God for the safe return of his son.

He, however, complained that the FIA staff in Islamabad was asking his son to pay a Rs5,000 fine before being allowed to go home on May 30.

Kamran Suleman, 19, from Karachi, who holds a diploma in graphic design, was another illegal migrant who left his parents on February 2, 2016, in search of a job in Europe.

He was taken to Iran from Karachi by human smugglers in a car and then to Greece via Turkey by land and sea. “A travel agent asked a bus driver to take us into the Iranian territory from Mand Bilo in Balochistan. On reaching Tehran, an agent crammed me along with five other men into the boot of a car and started the journey.”

He said from Iran, his group was taken to Turkey’s Marco city where they were detained in a safe house by the agent and then one night were brought out and asked to move towards Greece on foot through a mountain covered with snow.

“There were 120 Pakistanis kept in the safe house,” he said, adding the Turkish police opened fire on the group, injuring one of the illegal migrants whose foot was later amputated. “All of us were put in a prison for r to die in my home country rather trying again to go to Europe or anywhere else.”

Mohammad Irfan, 26, from Khyber Agency, who was working at a grocery store in Karachi, was taken to Iran via Quetta by a human smuggler in February after he paid Rs20,000 to him.

He stayed in Tehran for two days and then along with five other people was squeezed into the boot of a car to be taken to a hillside.

“I along the other people was forced to travel by foot for 12 hours to reach Turkey. In Turkey, we were shifted to a safe house where some Afghan families were already kept.”

The Pakistani migrants, who managed to reach Greece, were arrested and detained in camps before being handed over to Turkish authorities for deportation to Pakistan.

When contacted, director Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Islamabad, Mazharul Haq, did not say how many Pakistani illegal immigrants taken to Greece or Turkey by human smugglers were being kept in detention centres there.

He said apart from other measures, the FIA should appoint liaison officers in different European and Middle Eastern countries to check human smuggling.

“Many airlines have refused to take Pakistani deportees back home due to stinging smell emitting from their bodies as sometimes there was bleeding from old wounds on their bodies,” the FIA official said.

Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2016

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