Amid reports regarding the arbitrary offloading of passengers travelling abroad, an official from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Thursday clarified that people were only being offloaded or denied boarding if they did not have valid documents or authorities suspected them of working with migrant smugglers.

Over the past few months, numerous incidents have been reported of travellers being offloaded from flights at various airports, despite possessing valid travel documents. The actions came after a crack down on migrant smuggling after last year’s Greece boat tragedy that claimed several Pakistani lives. Earlier this month, FIA Director General Riffat Mukhtar acknowledged that incidents of people being offloaded had been reported at Lahore and Karachi airports, and that investigations were underway.

In a video statement shared today, FIA Lahore Zone Director Captain (retired) Muhammad Ali Zia addressed the recent issue of “misleading AI-generated videos and false information circulating on social media regarding alleged offloading incidents at airports”.

“All these rumours have no connection with reality,” Zia said, referring to reports of people being offloaded “for no reason”.

However, the FIA officer noted that a lot of people were those “who get deceived by various human smugglers in some way”.

Zia detailed that FIA immigration officials at airports check the travel documents of “all those people and profile them”, asserting that no one going abroad for a valid purpose was being stopped.

“All those who are denied from going abroad are refused due to them not having valid documents, or if they have permits or visas wherein the companies stated do not exist, and we have suspicions that human smugglers are trapping them and taking them abroad.’’

“We have seen cases where people get deceived by these human smugglers and change their routes mid-transit, or take an accomplice with them in the form of their mother or sister, through which they can exit here with the [safeguard] of an Umrah [visa],” Zia said.

He added there had been past cases where such people were deported from other countries, following which the FIA’s Anti-Human Trafficking Cell registers a case, conducts an inquiry and “such human traffickers are brought to a halt”.

He urged the public not to be fooled by migrant smugglers. The FIA officer said those networks were negatively portraying the matter to “create unrest” and secure financial gains for themselves.

He recalled the Mauritania and Greece boat capsize incidents, saying that innocent people were shown “dreams of Europe” and smuggled out of Pakistan via dunki (illegal land routes) or by transiting in other countries, only to be pressured into handing over exorbitant amounts of cash or even losing their lives.

“Not only does Pakistan’s name on an international level get maligned and the value of our green passport declines, but many countries have also created difficulties for us in obtaining visas,” the FIA Lahore director said.

Zia assured the public that immigration staff would facilitate all those who were travelling abroad for legitimate reasons with valid documents.

The FIA’s Facebook post said “such fabricated content aims to misguide the public and undermine institutional credibility”, and urged citizens to rely only on verified information from official FIA platforms.

Earlier this week, BBC Urdu reported that it spoke to some of the offloaded individuals, including a 25-year-old man from Hyderabad who had obtained a work visa for Saudi Arabia.

Another person, aged 35, who hailed from Punjab’s Sargodha, was stopped from travelling to Saudi Arabia from Karachi, and later also barred from travelling to Dubai from Lahore for work.

A resident of Punjab’s Jhang told BBC Urdu he was offloaded from Karachi as officials questioned why he was using that airport instead of the nearby one in Lahore, the reason for which he said was a cheaper ticket.

Earlier this week, it emerged that a number of genuine businessmen and tourists lodged a strong protest against the “harsh policy” to offload even those going for business trips or tourism.

Gujrat Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Ahmed Hassan Mattu told Dawn that he had received several complaints from members of the Gujrat chamber about being offloaded from Lahore, Sialkot and other airports despite having genuine travel documents and recommendation letters.

He said that the business fraternity had been very concerned over such a harsh policy of FIA Immigration as genuine businessmen should not be stopped or bothered at the airports.

When asked about the reasons of offloading, FIA Gujranwala Zone Director Muhammad Bin Ashraf told Dawn that there was no harsh policy or new directions issued in this regard of offloading passengers with fake documents or suspicious motives.