ISLAMABAD: The British High Commission is still clueless about hundreds of lost passports after months of snail-paced probe into the incident.

Investigations by the Federal Investigation Agency have not made headway either.

The high commission had instituted an inquiry after a large number of cases of lost passports surfaced last year. Determining the precise number of the lost passports and finding out the place of loss is probably the only progress as yet in investigations about which BHC diplomats are reluctant to share information with the Pakistan government and affected visa seekers.

“We have concluded that 118 passports were lost and the loss took place in Islamabad as against the general impression that they went missing while being transferred to the regional hub in Abu Dhabi,” a senior diplomat said.

He, however, emphasized that the matter was still being investigated and it was difficult to precisely say what caused the loss of such a big number of passports.

Pakistani investigators say the numbers could be much higher and could run into hundreds.

It is, nevertheless, quite clear that the issue has brought the role of two private companies jointly running the visa applications centres under intense scrutiny, particularly after heightened fears that the lost travel documents may end up in the country’s notorious passport black market to which the terrorists also have easy access.

“It is scary to think of such a large number of passports, many of them having valid visas of other countries, falling into the wrong hands. The BHC may need to review its entire system for the security of the documents submitted to it by visa applicants to prevent such occurrences,” a senior Pakistani security official observed.

The serious implications of passport loss were highlighted by a number of terrorist incidents and more recently by investigation into the assassination of an important Hamas leader Mabhouh al-Mahmoud in Dubai.

A spokesman for the British High Commission, Rob Murphy, maintained that the department took the issue very seriously and investigations were already under way.

“We take the integrity of our immigration system very seriously and are investigating these reports as a matter of urgency,” he said in reply to a query from Dawn.