LAHORE, March 18: The Pakistan government will raise the issue of killing of six Pakistani youths by the Macedonian police on March 5 last year at the International Court of Justice, while the Punjab administration has decided to initiate action against human smugglers.

This was stated by PML-Q president Shujaat Husain at a ceremony held here on Tuesday to distribute cheques among the heirs of the six victims. He donated Rs3 million on the request of the Ansar Burni Trust.

Both the Zahoor Elahi Trust and the Ansar Burni Trust will jointly take up the case before the ICJ as Mr Husain will bear the costs.

Mr Husain said the government would also consider severing of diplomatic relations with Macedonia if it did not cooperate in bringing the accused to the ICJ.

The youths, Bilal Kazmi, Omar Farooq, Asif Javed, Khalid Iqbal, Ijaz Ahmad and Muhammad Riaz, arrested from border area had entered Macedonia in a bid to illegally cross over to Greece in search of a better future.

They were killed before the US embassy on “suspicion” of being Al-Qaeda members who had entered the country to sabotage US interests.

The US embassy refused to buy the Macedonian police story saying the victims were not a threat to American interests.

The victims were buried without holding any proper funeral service and rites, said Mr Burni who was present at the ceremony. The six bodies did not decompose as these were identified just with the help of the victims’ pictures when the graves were dug six months later, he added.

He said the Macedonian foreign office had admitted in response to a letter of the Burni Trust that the police could not establish any link between the victims and the Al-Qaeda. What the police could recover from the pockets of the victims were some pages of Holy Quran.

Senator S. M. Zafar told reporters that the case against Macedonian government would be filed with the European Parliament and the process would take six months.

Meanwhile, the Punjab government has announced that it will take action against human smugglers.

Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi told reporters after the ceremony that police would register cases on charge of fraud against the agents involved in illegal smuggling of people promising them a bright future abroad.