ISLAMABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) immigration wing on Thursday arrested in Karachi an alleged human smuggler, who the authorities said had been involved in smuggling people to Libya, including those who had died in a shipwreck earlier this year.
The FIA said in a statement that the suspect was trying to escape to Azerbaijan on an international flight when he was arrested, adding that he had been in hiding for months. He was offloaded from his scheduled flight and taken into custody, the FIA said.
The statement added a case against the suspect was registered at the FIA Anti-Human Trafficking Circle, Gujrat and he had been handed over to the authorities there following his arrest,
There have been two notable incidents of boats drowning off the coast of Libya in the Mediterranean Sea this year in which several Pakistanis had lost their lives. The first incident took place in February and the other in April, but the authorities are yet to specify in which case the latest arrest has been made.
