LAHORE, Sept 20: The FIA has failed to launch a crackdown on human traffickers despite the recent deportation of 130 Pakistanis from Italy and drowning of around a dozen in Greece.

The FIA immigration and passport cell authorities are busy off-loading suspected passengers and taking deportees into custody in their search for clues to traffickers. Recovering victims’ money and saving potential victims are what the officials claim to be their prime objectives.

This year, the FIA could arrest only 327 travel agents from Punjab, acting on tip-offs from off-loaded people, deportees and other complainants. Some 450 had been arrested last year.

As many as 110 people were off-loaded and 167 people deported. However, during investigation, it was found out that travel documents of 50 of the off-loaded people were genuine and documents of 37 not declared invalid by foreign countries.

The FIA is also not taking note of the information that after 9\11 human smuggling rackets have been actively sending their clients to countries from where they can reach Europe by sea.

A senior FIA official said over 300 Pakistanis were drowned when their boats capsized while entering Greece and Italy. The young men who were deported from Italy told this reporter that a boat, carrying 250 Asians mostly Pakistanis, drowned due to over-loading. Some 23 identified Asians also drowned in the river between Turkey and Greece.

There have also been reports that 2,000 Pakistanis are languishing in European jails for either violating immigration laws or illegally crossing borders.

The official says there is a need to check people travelling to Libya and Iran that offer sea routes to Europe.

He said traffickers had now shifted to smaller towns and cities to lure the innocent who got trapped and paid them hundreds of thousands of rupees for a better future abroad. Such areas in Punjab include Gujrat, Mandi Bahauddin, Malikwal, Serai Alamgir, Gujranwala and Multan.

The southern Punjab is said to be one of the places from where children are taken to Dubai for camel races.

The official suggested that establishment of passport offices in smaller towns could help monitor the activities of human traffickers.

However, the FIA claimed that since the promulgation of Human Smuggling Ordinance 2002 in October, which proposed harsh punishments for the traffickers, not a single boy had been smuggled abroad. However, the agency conceded that it had given rise to the phenomenon of “cultural troupes”.

Under the ordinance, around 150 cases have been registered, including 34 in the Punjab.

The reports also suggest that around 500 women of 12 to 30 years of age from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and central Asian republics are being smuggled into the country every year. There has been no check on this practice either.

The human-trafficking is one of the fastest-growing and most lucrative criminal enterprises in the world with a multi-billion dollar profit margin. It is rated the third most serious illegal trade after drugs and arms smuggling. Around one million people, mostly women and children, are being trafficked annually. Pakistan is 70th on the list of affected countries.

Out of one million people, 20,000 are smuggled to the US every year. FIA officials say that the US main concern is terrorism and human trafficking. Therefore, it often presses for a clampdown on traffickers.

It is widely believed that no racket involved in it can operate without the help or consent of immigration authorities.

Giving details about the methods used by the local agents mafia, the FIA officials said that picture-changed passports and swapping of boarding cards was in practice. The agents either prepared genuine documents through the passport authorities. All those who try to reach abroad through agents have similar stories to tell. They sell their properties and gold ornaments or borrow loans to travel abroad.

Muhammad Ishfaq was among the 23 drowned in Greece. A resident of Gawalmandi, his father who runs a tea-stall in the locality told reporters the other day that he had lost both son and money in his search for greener pastures. — Zulqernain Tahir