At least 64 deportees from Libya, Greece convicted in 3 Punjab districts after summary trial

GUJRAT: A deportee hailing from Gujranwala was convicted by a local court on Thursday, taking the number of deportees from Libya and Greece sentenced over the past two weeks across three districts to 64.

The deportees were handed 10-15 days’ imprisonment on average after summary trials in cases lodged against them by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in its three circles of the region.

The courts of special judges central (SJCs) in Gujranwala, Gujrat and Sialkot districts also imposed fines of Rs25,000-50,000 on them after they confessed to illegally crossing the international borders.

As per the court decisions, the period of their judicial custody —between 10 and 15 days — has also been considered to count towards their imprisonment, and they were released after the payment of their imposed fines.

On Thursday, a special judge central in Gujranwala district convicted a man under section 17(1) (unlawful emigration) of the Emigration Ordinance 1979.

The judge handed him a sentence for the period already served in judicial custody and imposed a fine of Rs50,000.

A senior FIA official told Dawn that at least 200 illegal Pakistani immigrants had been captured by the Libyan authorities during their bid to board boats heading to Italy.

After remaining in the captivity of Libyan authorities for a couple of weeks, he said the illegal immigrants were brought to Pakistan on two special flights with the assistance of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) around a month ago.

At least 90 of the 200 deportees were from the Gujranwala region, where the FIA’s circles in Gujranwala, Gujrat and Sialkot districts had lodged the cases against them. The deportees were detained by the respective FIA circles and their cases were sent to the courts concerned in these cities.

Official sources said the summary trial of 26 remaining deportees was underway in different courts, and a decision was expected in the next few days.

They further said that so far a sum of about Rs1.05 million had been received as a fine from the convicted deportees.

FIA Gujranwala Zone Director Muhammad Bin Ashraf told Dawn that the agency has put the names of these deportees on immigration’s passport control list (PCL), as a result of which they will be unable to travel abroad for at least five years.

He added that a record ratio of convictions in the illegal human trafficking and immigration cases had been witnessed during the last six months in the region, with 172 people convicted by the courts during that period.

He highlighted that between January 1 and July 8, courts had awarded up to 22 years of imprisonment and imposed fines totalling Rs13.7m. These measures, he said, were part of the FIA’s efforts to combat the illegal immigration and human trafficking networks in the region.

In separate meetings this week, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi discussed efforts to curb illegal immigration, among other topics, with his Chinese counterpart Ling Zhifeng and Sri Lankan Minister of Public Security Ananda Wijepala.

The Gujranwala, Gujrat, Mandi Bahauddin, Wazirabad, Sialkot and Hafizabad districts of the central Punjab region are known for illegal human trafficking networks across the globe.

The FIA has expanded its operations in these areas over the last year by opening circles or police stations in Sialkot and a sub-circle in Mandi Bahauddin, as most of the victims of various boat capsizes had been from this particular region. ...