LAHORE: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has decided, in principle, not to arrest those deported from Turkey and Greece who managed to enter the countries through land route without forged documents.

The FIA took the decision keeping in view a large number of Pakistanis deported every month from Turkey and Greece. Most of them had travelled without making fake documents, but the FIA would earlier book them under the law as it did others who travelled on forged travel documents.

“The FIA will now consider those deported persons from Turkey and Greece as victims, who entered there without any forged or fake travel documents. No legal action will be taken against such persons as Pakistani agent mafia is primarily responsible for luring and transporting them through land route -- Quetta, Iran, Turkey and Greece,” an official told Dawn on Monday.

FIA Punjab (Zone-I) Director Muhammad Rizwan introduced the changes to the standing operating procedures (SOP) for handling of deportees.

According to the new immigration rules, “The Prevention of Smuggling of Migrants Act, 2018 and the UN’s migrant smuggling protocol 2004 envisage non-criminalisation/humane treatment of the smuggled migrants (deportees) and effective prosecution of the perpetrators of transitional organised crime of ‘smuggling of migrants’. On the contrary, in practice, deportees are being subjected to vexatious treatment and prosecution under the anachronistic laws.”

It further stated that to curb this treatment, new SOP will be applied at Lahore and Sialkot international airports: “All deportees (excluding categories A and B) shall be ‘released’ from the airports within the shortest possible time after identifying the perpetrators/ facilitators (local or international) responsible for the act and recording ‘deportee’s statement.’

The names, CNICs and emergency passport numbers of deportees shall be transmitted by the head of immigration at airport to the office of director Punjab Zone-I via fax and mail on the same day for blacklisting through FIA (immigration) headquarters as envisaged in Director General FIA’s standing order to curb recidivism.”

The FIA said that the deportees’ statements along with prosecution shall be communicated by the head of immigration at the airport to the respective heads of anti-human trafficking cells on the same day for registering criminal investigation and undertaking effective prosecution of the “organised criminal groups” involved in “smuggling of migrants” as per the provision of migrants smugglings act.

The official said the SOP has been implemented in other airports of the country. The A and B categories (of the immigration rules) empowered the FIA to take action against those deportees who entered a foreign land on doctored documents.

Meanwhile, the cyber crime helpline established in January registered 787 complaints last month.

According to an official, majority of the complaints pertained to financial frauds, hacking, frauds related to online jobs and online shopping, pornography, blackmailing, blasphemous content, defamation, fake social media profiles, harassment and, most common of all, unauthorised access. “Most complaints were received from women and overseas Pakistanis. Majority of calls were made from Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi, Rawalpindi and Abbotabad,” he added.

Published in Dawn, March 10th, 2020