GUJRAT, Jan 1: The Interior Ministry has directed the FIA’s Gujranwala region office to launch an ‘operation fox hunt’ in the division for the arrest of 333 human smugglers. This was claimed by deputy director Naeem Akram Bhroka while talking to Dawn by telephone here on Sunday.

He said that he had prepared a list of these smugglers after conducting interviews of deportees and illegal immigrants recently returned from Iran. The list sent to the interior ministry had been approved.

The list, he said, carried names of around 100 traffickers who were placed in the A-category and the rest in the B-category.

After 9/11, the international community, especially America, England and other European countries, had mounted pressure on the government to launch a crackdown on traffickers.

Since the government had adopted foolproof arrangements at all its international airports, he said the traffickers had now taken to land routes to send people abroad illegally.

He said a heavy influx was witnessed in 2005 at Pakistan-Iran border as the Iranian government caught 18,000 Pakistanis in its territory.

Around 14,000 Pakistani youths were languishing in jails of Iran and Turkey, he said.

Mr Bhroka said the FIA had got information that 19 traffickers of the A-category had been living in Iran and Turkey. The agency had launched the operation against smugglers and arrested 24, including 12 of A-category in the month of December, he said.

The arrested agents included, Malik Sheraz, Raja Farooq Qaiser, Waqar Asadullah, Safdar Mochi, Haji Yaqoob and Mian Abraiz of Gujrat; Shahbaz of Mandi Bahauddin, Hafiz Shahid of Sialkot and Yahya of Qila Dedar Singh.

He said that officials were conducting investigation on 800 FIRs and 1,200 inquiries while 3,000 applications were pending.

The FIA official termed lack of staff the major reason for the slow pace of investigation. He said the agency was also conducting an internal operation to purge the department from black sheep.

It may be mentioned that high-ups have recently suspended three officials from service for patronizing agents and some other charges. Assistant director Chaudhry Mushtaq has also been transferred and an inquiry against him is under way.