LAHORE, July 4: The Anti-Trafficking Unit of the Federal Investigation Agency, established about one-and-a-half years ago to check human smuggling, has virtually become non-functional after its merger with the passport circle.

Official sources told Dawn on Tuesday that the ATU, established primarily to develop expertise within the agency to identify human trafficking situation and investigate certain cases, is working these days under respective passport cells in five zones — Lahore, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Quetta and Karachi.

They said in Lahore the ATU was active as long there were cases of child jockeys a couple of months ago, but now it was not carrying out any special task.

To provide protection to victims and evidence gathering against culprits through trained investigators was the prime objective of the unit.

They said it was envisaged at the time of the unit’s inception that it would take measures to identify the human smuggling victims, especially women, who were smuggled abroad or into Pakistan with a promise of providing them jobs with handsome salary packages, besides establishing model shelters for them in collaboration with the NGOs.

It was also supposed to launch anti-trafficking campaigns to create awareness among people, especially those living near border areas. Besides, it was required to coordinate with the passport circles and immigration wings of the agency.

“Instead of merging the ATUs with the passport cells, the agency must take more steps to track down rackets involved in sending hundreds and thousands of people abroad, especially to Europe via Iran,” an official said.

FIA Director-General Tariq Perviaz said the merger was not in his knowledge, however, he said, he would look into the matter.

After losing its important anti-crime and economic-crime wings to the National Accountability Bureau some two years ago, the agency has become immigration-oriented.

Only a handful of the employees of both wings had opted to join the NAB, and those who were working with the agency on deputation had been sent back to their parent departments. However, to accommodate the staff of these wings the agency had created new cells.