GUJRANWALA, Aug 15: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has issued 12 pictures of those people found suffocated in a lorry container in Turkey while traveling to the Greece border.

Of them, one was Babar Shehbaz, 22, of Asad Colony, Gujranwala.

The whole locality is haunted by the hues and cries of the Babar’s family, who is crying to get the body of Babar for burial.

Babar from a middle class family was jobless. When he failed to get job here, he started planning to go abroad and met Sultan, of Gujrat, who showed him a rosy picture of working conditions in Greece.

Sultan agreed to arrange Babar’s traveling means to Greece for Rs640,000. Babar paid Rs175,000 to the agent, while the remaining amount was to be paid later.

He along with 11 others left for Greece via Iran and Turkey in the first week of July.

They were packed into the lorry container in Turkey to reach Greece in the first week of August.

On the way to their destination, all the group members died of suffocation. The Pakistani embassy in Turkey sent their pictures to FIA Gujranwala to ascertain their identity.

Abdur Razzaq, father of the deceased Babar, appealed to the government to arrange transportation of the body of his son to Pakistan.

“Just give my dead son to me and I want nothing else," said hysterically crying Razzaq.

Ammar Saeed, cousin of Babar, told Dawn that Babar had called him from Iran in the last week of July and told him that he was exhausted after walking for three days.

He said Babar did not want to travel to Greece in lorry containers but the agent did not allow him to go back to Pakistan.

An official of the Pakistani embassy in Turkey said his office was not authorised to dispatch bodies to other countries under the Turkish rules.

He said aggrieved families should nominate someone in Turkey to get the body from the Turkish authorities. FIA Inspector Mian Sabir said Gujrat, Mandi Bahauddin, Sialkot and Gujranwala were at top ranks for illegal human trafficking.

He said a large number of people wanted to go abroad through illegal means because of unemployment stemming from closure of industrial units.

In 2007, 3,500 people, of Gujranwala, were deported as illegal immigrants and FIA arrested 562 human agents.

While this year until August, 2,600 people were deported and 525 agents arrested.