ISLAMABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Monday informed the Islamabad High Court (IHC) that Interpol had been approached to arrest a suspect in a women trafficking case.

“The accused is abroad. Her arrest is being processed through the National Central Bureau (NCB), Interpol,” said the FIA in its written reply submitted to the court in a case related to the trafficking of two sisters in 2010. The girls were taken to Dubai by their employers as housemaids and then allegedly forced into the sex trade.

One of the victims last year filed a petition with the IHC, through her counsel Zulfiqar Ahmad Bhutta. The petitioner said she and her sister started working as housemaids in a house in Faisalabad four years back.

After some time, the owners of the house asked the sisters to accompany them to Dubai to work at a beauty parlour which they had set up there.

The couple arranged the travelling documents for the two sisters and took them to Dubai. At the time of their departure, both the sisters were 15 and 16 years of age but the accused managed to prepare documents showing them older.

The counsel said the two sisters were forced into the sex trade and upon their protest the accused threatened them that they would get their parents framed in serious crimes in Pakistan.

From time to time, the petitioner and her sister protested against the accused persons but they were always beaten up.

The counsel told the court that every year the couple used to send one of the sisters back home to visit their parents, keeping the other with them as a hostage.

This continued for four years when the two sisters managed to come back to Pakistan together. After their arrival in Pakistan, they informed their parents about the facts and refused to go back to Dubai.

However, the counsel added, the accused attacked the sisters and their parents and fired four bullets into the petitioner’s leg last year. The FIA said the man accused of forcing the girls into the sex trade had already been arrested in Faisalabad and his name included on the exit control list (ECL). However, his wife was still abroad.

It said an incomplete challan of the case had been submitted to the trial court in Faisalabad and efforts were being made to apprehend the woman.