57 passengers offloaded from flight at Karachi airport

Passengers from outside Sindh, especially from different cities of Punjab, are facing difficulties while travelling to different countries from Karachi Airport.

Fifty-seven such passengers were offloaded from just one flight. According to airport sources, the 57 passengers were offloaded from flight SV 709. Among the passengers stopped from travelling, 35 were Umrah pilgrims and 22 were going on work visas. According to FIA immigration officials, most of the passengers’ documents were incomplete or their hotel bookings were not confirmed.

Around 200 passengers have been offloaded from different flights during the last few days. Not only this has caused the waste of tickets worth hundreds of thousands of rupees, but also those passengers would be facing difficulties in their next journey due to the offloading stamp on their passports.

The FIA high-ups have directed all the shift incharges to submit reports of the offloaded passengers on a morning and evening basis. According to a source, people who want to go to Europe illegally go to other countries on the pretext of tourist visas or religious pilgrimages, from where they make illegal trips to Europe or other attractive countries by making arrangements through agents.

Following the implementation of strict measures in Lahore, Sialkot, Multan and Faisalabad airports, especially after the death of many Pakistanis on boats, people trying to go abroad illegally began to depart from the Karachi airport.

More than a dozen FIA officers are facing inquiries into how such people were allowed to travel. A spokesperson for the FIA denied that there was any ban for the passengers from Punjab to travel from the Karachi airport.

The FIA Immigration Karachi stated that a false and baseless impression was being spread on social media and other platforms that passengers belonging to Punjab were being prevented from travelling from Jinnah International Airport.

Passengers and families from all provinces of the country, including Punjab, were travelling without any hindrance from the Karachi airport, he said and clarified that due to an increase in human trafficking and agent mafia activities, the checking and profiling process had been tightened only for suspected or first-time travellers.

The aim of this move was to protect the citizens from the deception of human traffickers, the spokesperson said, adding that such measures did not involve any kind of provincial discrimination.

First-time travellers who chose to travel from Karachi instead of their nearest airport were only asked the reason for that and those who provided satisfactory explanation and had valid travel documents did not face any kind of problem, the FIA said.

However, following the offloading of 57 passengers, the FIA took action against its own officers. FIA Deputy Director Azhar Javed informed The News that a letter had been written to the FIA director to take immediate action against some officers.

He said the offloading took place during the duty of two shift incharges. Javed said that after the recent incident, he himself remained at the airport for several hours and all flights departed as usual and no passengers were offloaded in his presence.