KARACHI, Feb 22: As many as 814 worn-out job seekers arrived here on Tuesday by a cargo launch after being deported from Muscat.

The job seekers, most of them illiterate and hailing from upcountry, had been smuggled to the Gulf state through Taftan, crossing the Pak-Iran border illegally near Mand Ballu.

They paid the human traffickers different amounts ranging from Rs5,000 to Rs25,000. The job seekers, most of them bare-foot, returned with no personal belongings or documents, except the emergency passports issued by the Pakistani mission in Oman.

A strong team of the immigration and Passport Circle staff was deployed at the immigration check post at Ghas Bandar, where deportees were given food and water by the Ansar Barney Trust. They were also given slippers and clothes by the trust.

The job seekers remained in prisons for several days before being deported by the cargo launch, Al-Mohammedi-II, which arrived here after a 30-hour voyage with the overloaded human cargo.

This was the second batch of illegal job seekers from the Gulf state as 641 had come back on Jan 18 from Muscat. The FIA officials said the deportees also included four suspected foreigners and they had been sent to the FIA's Passport Circle for further action.

Over 15,000 illegal job seekers had been deported from Muscat during the past year. According to the deportees, their batches travelled in the human traffickers' vehicles for two days to reach an Iranian border town.

After an overnight stay, they again set out and reached another town in two more days. The vehicles returned and they were taken in other vehicles to a jetty where they were herded into small launches. After a 10-hour sail, they were abandoned in the coastal area near Muscat, where authorities rounded them up and sent to jails.