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‘FIA officials have links with human traffickers’ - LRE - 08-07-2008 05:05 PM
‘FIA officials have links with human traffickers’
* Agency regional director says most arrested traffickers directly contact complainants and settle out of court
By Shafiq Sharif
LAHORE: Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) officials corroborate with human traffickers and play a vital role in returning money to the victims through out-of-court settlements, FIA sources told Daily Times on Wednesday.
When contacted, FIA Regional Director Chuadhry Manzoor Ahmad said: “These are only allegations and most complainants withdraw their complaints after settling the matter out of court.”
However, FIA sources told Daily Times that many human traffickers had links with FIA officials, who helped to ‘bury’ cases against the former.
They said that one such human trafficker was Sheikh Chand, who has an overseas recruitment license for Saudi Arabia. However, they said that he was also sending people abroad by providing them with fake travel documents. The sources also said that during any given two months, FIA officials usually received three or more complaints against him. They claimed that after visiting Chand’s office in response to the complaints, FIA officials had tried to convince the complainants to withdraw their complaints or declare them fake.
Manzoor said that after people lodged their complaints, and FIA officials arrested the culprits, the culprits contacted the complainants and offered to return their money if they withdrew their complaints. He said that in this way most complaints were settled out of court. He added that since there was not much material evidence in such cases, and FIA investigation reports would not be considered strong evidence in court without the complainant’s presence, the cases were settled out of court. Manzoor said that the FIA had a complete record of human traffickers and was working towards collecting evidence against them, after which they could be sentenced by a court. He, however, denied the involvement of FIA officials in any such settlements.
An official of the Anti Human Trafficking Cell (AHTC) told Daily Times that the AHTC had arrested about 6,000 to 7,000 human traffickers since its establishment but many of them were still operating in the city. He said that it would be very tough to check such human traffickers, who were arrested and later released through courts or out-of-court settlements. He said that the AHTC received about 1,200 to 1,300 complaints annually but about 70 percent of the complainants withdrew their cases.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C08%5C07%5Cstory_7-8-2008_pg13_8