PESHAWAR, Sept 8: The passport circle of the Federal Investigation Agency has released an alleged human trafficker and two Afghan nationals who were being smuggled to Europe on fake travel documents, it is learnt. The Oman immigration authorities arrested the alleged smuggler, Fayyaz Mohammad, the Afghan nationals, Usman Mohammad and Javed Khan, at Muscat airport and deported them on Monday.
The FIA passport circle, instead of arresting the three, allowed them to go home.
Usman Mohammad had a fake Pakistani passport with a bogus address of Nowshera, showing himself as son of Fayyaz Mohammad, sources said. They added that Javed Khan possessed a bogus British passport.
The Afghan nationals told FIA interrogators that they had paid a huge amount of money to a local travel agent, Azam, for preparing the fake travel documents.
They alleged that Azam had asked them to meet Fayyaz Mohammad, a resident of Nowshera, in Islamabad, who would go with them to England.
They were travelling by Gulf Air to England via Muscat. But the immigration staff at Muscat airport detained them on suspicion and later deported them to Peshawar, where they were set free.
The sources said that Fayyaz Ahmad, who allegedly worked as courier for a network of human smugglers, should have been detained for proper interrogation.
Meanwhile, the Saudi immigration authorities at Riyadh airport deported two Pakistani labourers on the charge of travelling on fake passports, official sources told Dawn on Wednesday.
One of the deported persons, Abdullah Jan, a resident of South Waziristan, told officials of the FIA passport circle that he had travelled to Riyadh on a machine-readable passport and got work visa from the Saudi Embassy in Islamabad.
But the immigration authorities deemed the documents non- genuine and deported him.
The second deportee, Israel Khan, a resident of Peshawar, had already worked in Riyadh and came back to his country a few months ago on leave.
He told the FIA passport circle officials that he went to Riyadh for the first time in 2001 and had a re-entry visa for his return. But when he went back to Riyadh, the immigration staff did not accept the visa and passport and sent him back.