11/12/2003
Dawn News
By Tahir Siddiqui

KARACHI, Dec 10: Another 1,025 worn-out job seekers arrived here on Friday by two cargo launches, taking the total of Pakistanis deported from Muscat during the current year alone to more than 4,000.

The job seekers, most of them illiterate and hailing from upcountry, had been smuggled to the Gulf state through Taftan, crossing the Pakistan-Iran border illegally near Mand Ballu. They paid the human traffickers different amounts ranging from Rs5,000 to Rs25,000.

Their clothes were caked with dirt as they remained in prisons for several days before being deported by the cargo launches - Al-Qadri and Al-Fannan - which arrived here after a 30-hour voyage with the overloaded human cargo.

They say that over 2,000 Pakistanis are still in jails where conditions are too miserable. As many as 605 deportees had come back on Nov 14 from Muscat. Another 727 had been deported in late October from the Gulf state, followed by 774 more in late August.

The job seekers, most of them bare-foot, returned with no personal elongings or documents on them, except the emergency passports issued by the Pakistani mission in Oman. A strong team of the Immigration and Passport Circle staff was deployed at the immigration check-post at Ghas Bandar, where the deportees were given food and water by the Ansar Burney Trust.

According to the deportees, their batches travelled in the human traffickers' vehicles for two days to reach an Iranian border town. After an overnight stay, they again set out and reached another town in the next two days.

There, the vehicles left, and they were taken in other vehicles to a jetty where they were herded into small launches. After a 10-hour sail, they were abandoned in the coastal area near Muscat where authorities rounded them up and sent to jails.

The FIA officials said the deportees also included a sub-agent of the human traffickers. They said the agent was identified as Noor Khawaf, hailing from Bunair. The officials said the suspected agent had obtained Rs15,000 each from at least 115 job seekers. He was arrested and sent to the Passport Circle for further legal action, they added.

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