ISLAMABAD, Oct 20: After spending a night with FIA interrogators, all the 42 illegal immigrants who were deported to Islamabad from Spain on Thursday admitted that they were Pakistanis, official source said.

In line with the investigation, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) registered separate cases against the 42 Pakistani deportees and also booked around 12 travel agents on charges of human smuggling. A large scale hunt has also been launched against the agents.

On arrival at Islamabad airport from Spain by a special flight, the deportees, except for Naseer Ahmed, staged a drama - in an attempt to be sent back to Spain — that they were from Indian-held Kashmir.

It plunged the FIA and Spanish embassy officials into a fix for a while.

After hours of talks, the 42 illegal immigrants were sent to the FIA passport cell for interrogation and the special plane was allowed to leave.

The FIA on Friday admitted Pakistan’s embassy in Madrid (Spain) issued them emergency passports after initial verification of their national status and allowed the Spanish authorities to deport them by a special flight to Islamabad. They were received by FIA.

Initially they maintained that all but one were from Indian held Kashmir. However, subsequent investigations revealed that they were from Pakistan and were arrested in Spain after trying to illegally reach there from Conakry, Guinea through boat. FIA has started criminal investigations after the arrest of these illegal migrants and have also identified agents and facilitators who were instruments in this act of human smuggling.

According to sources close to investigation, out of the 42 migrants - the 17 belonged to Faisalabad - 8 from Gujrat - 4 from Gujranwala - one from Lahore while the remaining 16 from Rawalpindi.

He said that those belonged to other cities would be handed over to the concerned authorities of their respective cities for further investigation.

The source said they were the agents who taught them to identify themselves as Indian and belonging to Indian held Kashmir as it would help them in going back to Spain to get asylum there.

However, they all broke down after one night interrogation and revealed the truth.

Deputy director FIA passport cell Junaid Sultan said: “They all are Pakistanis and belonged to different cities. First it was to establish their identity which was a lengthy process. However, the interrogation is still under way.”