KARACHI: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Sunday claimed to have foiled a human trafficking attempt at Karachi airport by offloading four women who were ready to board a Saudi Arabia-bound flight under the pretext of performing Umrah.

“The FIA-immigration conducted a major operation at Karachi airport and offloaded four women,” said an FIA statement. The women were identified as Shazia Bano, Zameera Azeem, Lubna and Sana Shahzadi.

The FIA said that these women were being sent to Saudi Arabia for ‘forced labour’ by a former policewoman from Punjab.

The agency identified the suspect as Asia and said that she had allegedly covered the travel expenses of the four women, while another suspect, Waseem Gujjar, would facilitate them in Saudi Arabia.

The four women had travelled abroad in the past, the FIA said.

In another action, two passengers, Ilyas and Rayan, who arrived at the Jinnah International Airport were taken into custody by immigration authorities.

The FIA said that they were travelling on “emergency passports and their citizenship status was dubious”.

They were handed over to the Anti-Human Trafficking Circle of the FIA for further investigation.

Published in Dawn, February 17th, 2025