PESHAWAR, Nov 18: The special judge (immigration) on Saturday granted bail to 216 people deported from Oman a few days ago. The court, presided over by Malik Ghulam Mujtaba Khan, ordered that the applicants should be released after furnishing two sureties each amounting to Rs50,000.

Some 600 Pakistani illegal immigrants had been deported from Oman last week. The government had shifted 216 of them to Peshawar as they mostly belonged to the Frontier province and the tribal areas.

They were detained at the Peshawar central prison.

The same court had on Nov 3 granted bail to 195 people who had also been deported from Oman.

These people were booked by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) under relevant sections of the Passport Act and the Emigration Ordinance, 1979.

Their lawyer had contended that most of them were poor persons. He added that the sections wherein they were charged were bailable.

He argued that the prosecution could not prove that the applicants had left the country on fake documents.