——— Bodies of four more Pakistanis recovered from Greek boat tragedy
——— Number of missing Pakistanis from incident stand at 40
Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: At least 36 Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) officers have been sacked from their ser-vices due to their alleged involvement in the Greece boat tragedy, media reported.
As per details, 13 FIA officials were found guilty of involvement in human smuggling, and cases have been registered against them.
The FIA Director-General, Ahmad Ishaq Jahangir, oversaw the inquiry and ordered the dismissal of the 36 officers, including four inspectors, 10 sub-inspectors, two ASIs, five head constables, and 14 consta-bles.
The FIA Director-General stated that officials found guilty of negligence and involvement in illegal ac-tivities have no place in the organization. He assured that disciplinary action would be taken against those responsible for the boat tragedy.
The development came after an investigation committee probing the recent Greece boat tragedy re-vealed the involvement of 31 officials of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA). The committee decided to place the names of FIA officers, including inspectors, sub-inspectors, and constables in the Passport Control List (PCL).
According to sources, 19 FIA officers from Faisalabad Airport, three from Sialkot Airport, two from La-hore Airport, two from Islamabad Airport, and five from Quetta Airport have been implicated in the scandal.
The FIA decided to put the names of all 31 officers on the passport control list, effectively banning them from traveling abroad.
The investigation, which is still ongoing, has revealed that the 31 officers were involved in smuggling people onto the ship that sank off the coast of Greece, resulting in significant loss of life.
At least five Pakistanis who were being smuggled died in the Greece boat tragedy which later climbed to nine as the authorities found four more bodies of Pakistani nationals.
Earlier, Bodies of four more Pakistanis who perished in the Greek boat tragedy last month have been recovered, taking the total number of recovered corpses to nine, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) said on Wednesday.
The deceased have been identified as Shabbir, Zain Ali and Zeeshan — all three hailing from Narowal — whereas the fourth individual has been identified as Sialkot’s Owais Ali.
With the bodies shifted to a hospital in Athens from the Greek island Gavdos, the agency said, adding that the Pakistani embassy was making arrangements to send the remains to Pakistan, however, this may take another week.
The development comes as more than 80 Pakistanis had drowned after boats carrying them capsized near Greece on the night between December 13 and 14. Although, as many as 36 Pakistani citizens were rescued, the rest still remain missing which, as per a report from the Pakistani Embassy, should be presumed dead.
The boats, which departed from Libya’s Tobruk port also carried Bangladeshi, Egyptian and Sudanese nationals.
The incident warranted a strong response from the government with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordering ordered stern action against human smugglers as well as FIA officials who were found in-volved in facilitating them.
Presiding over a meeting in Islamabad on the matter of human trafficking prevention on December 20, the premier instructed the authorities concerned to complete the ongoing probe into the human traf-ficking issue at the earliest and submit concrete recommendations.
With the discovery of five more bodies, the number of missing Pakistanis stands at 40, said the investi-gation agency.
It is pertinent to know that as per official sources, there are still over 5,000 Pakistanis in Libya who are ready to travel to Europe while being accompanied by several Libyan and Pakistani agents. The sources said they obtained visas from Pakistan and arrived in Libya legally.
