KARACHI: A judicial magistrate on Tuesday sent the chairperson of a non-governmental organisation to prison on judicial remand in a child trafficking case.

On Monday, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had arrested Mubina Cassum Aboatwala, chairperson of the Health Oriented Preventive Education (HOPE) after a court dismissed her pre-arrest bail plea.

The FIA claimed that it had received a complaint from US authorities regarding the suspect’s involvement in the “illegal business of trafficking minors” for monetary gains.

A case has been registered against her under Sections 3 (trafficking in persons), 4 (aggravating circumstances) and 6 (victims of trafficking in person) of the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons Act, 2018 (amended in 2025).

On Tuesday, the investigating officer of the case produced the suspect before the judicial magistrate (South) and sought her physical custody for further investigation.

However, the court rejected the request and sent her to prison on judicial remand.

According to the FIR, the agency had received a complaint from the US Consulate General on September 15, 2023 against the suspect and others.

It said that the US authorities had mentioned three adoption visa cases and said that during investigation it came to know that the centres mentioned in the application had no record of these children.

It added that the Fraud Prevention Unit (FPU) contacted social welfare department, which confirmed that “HOPE was not an orphanage home in Pakistan and has no provision in its constitution for adoption of children”.

The FIR stated that the FIA found the NGO had handed over custody of “abandoned babies” to different families of a single community living abroad with foreign nationality on court orders, which were obtained on identical applications.

However, the agency claimed till date the NGO failed to produce a single piece of evidence to establish that the “abandoned babies” were found in the surrounding area of their hospital or clinic.

Published in Dawn, August 6th, 2025