LAHORE, Aug 26: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) claimed on Thursday that a human smuggler of Peshawar was involved in arranging the travel of 34 people for Malaysia.

The immigration authorities stopped them from travelling to Malaysia on Tuesday as they did not possess $1,000 and return tickets which the FIA officials claimed were 'legal requirements' for travelling to the Eastern Europe and Far East countries.

An FIA officer told Dawn that the initial investigation revealed that the passengers had given hundreds and thousands of rupees to him (human smuggler) for the preparation of the travel documents. He said the Malaysia visa stamps were also being verified.

It may, however, be mentioned that the FIA and various airlines had introduced certain measures to check human trafficking to these countries on "genuine documents".

Under these measures, the passengers having student and visit visa must have return tickets and at least $1,000 in hard cash before boarding a flight to these countries. The immigration authorities and various airlines have so far stopped over 70 passengers from travelling to the Eastern Europe failing to meet these conditions.

DEPORTED: The immigration authorities deported three Saudi nationals on Thursday for their alleged illegal stay. Officials said the visas of Abdul Hadi, Mashal Hamdan and Ms Sara had been expired for quite some time now. They were deported by a Saudi airline flight.