LAHORE: The Federal Investigation Agency arrested over 40 ‘human smugglers’ from various areas of Punjab on Wednesday.

Sixty-one raids were carried out, mostly in Punjab, in a crackdown launched across the country on the instructions of Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan.

The arrested people include owners of fake visa consultancy firms in Punjab, most wanted human smugglers and proclaimed offenders.

“We have arrested 43 agents and fake visa consultancy firms’ owners during raids in Lahore, Gujrat, Faisalabad and Multan. Some 300 passports, fake visa stamps and bank statements have been seized from them,” Lahore FIA Director Dr Usman Anwar told Dawn. He said it was illegal for the consultancy firms to keep the passports of clients.

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The FIA director said the crackdown had been intensified to stop Pakistanis from illegally entering European and other countries. “The Pakistanis facing deportation in Europe for being illegal immigrants are earning a bad name for the country,” he said.

The FIA laid hands on the human smugglers and fake visa consultancy firms after the minister asked it to adopt a strategy of prevention, protection of victims, prosecution of criminals, pursuing proclaimed offenders and absconders and partnership at the local and international levels.

He ordered the FIA to freeze bank accounts, cancel passports and block the computerised national identity cards of 300 identified human smugglers.

“We have placed the names of 150 human smugglers and their agents in Punjab on the Passport Control List,” Dr Anwar said.

The interior ministry fears that the country may be downgraded to ‘Tier 3’ from Tier 2 on the US Human Trafficking Watch List.

The ministry has also reportedly warned the local and foreign airlines not to bring deported persons to the country without its prior permission.

Published in Dawn, November 19th, 2015