LAHORE: The Ministry of Interior and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) have got a clue to a gang involved in issuing ‘clearance certificates’ to the absconders and wanted agents involved in human trafficking.

Highly-placed sources in the ministry said that the gang surfaced when Raja Tanveer, accused of human trafficking, produced a clearance certificate to the FIA investigators after being nabbed some days back. Senior FIA officials termed Tanveer an active member of an international gang of human traffickers led by Dr Sajid. A campaign for his arrest was launched after some 87 Pakistanis were caught by Turkish police in December 2003. The Pakistanis were hiding in the small coastal town of Didim, some 170 km south of Izmir for crossing into Greece illegally. The Pakistanis were arrested while they were being transported by a truck to Didim from Istanbul, where they were to be taken by boat to a small Greek Islan, which is only a few hundred meters off the Turkish coast. The truck driver and the Turkish agent were also apprehended.

"As the incidents of illegal Pakistani immigrants have increased in the recent days, there is a great need to embark on launching a media campaign in Pakistan highlighting the hardships and tribulation that people are made to go through by these unscrupulous elements in the name of a quick and safe journey to Europe," said a fax message sent to the ministry of interior from the Embassy of Pakistan in Turkey.

After this, the FIA launched a high profile campaign against Tanveer and his two accomplices Abdul Haq and Imtiaz Rasool alias Khalifa. Tanveer, after being arrested, admitted that he was involved in human trafficking and has sent more than 100 persons to Greece through Turkey.

He, during the interrogation revealed details about the gang from which he got the clearance certificate. The information regarding the gang caused serious concerns in the ministry of interior and the FIA and an immediate inquiry was launched to trace out the gang. Sources, however, believed that the gang must be enjoying the backing of some ‘insider’. "How can a commoner have access to the names and addresses of the absconders and wanted agents of the FIA," sources questioned.

Talking about the gang’s modus operandi, sources said that two or three members of the gang ambushed the travelling agent involved in the human trafficking and wanted by the FIA. They introduced themselves as the officials of "Anti-Human Trafficking Special Force" to the agent and later struck a deal with him for clearing him from the files of the FIA. The entire deal between the agent and the gang will take place in the car, which they used to pick up the agent, sources said.

"Three persons riding in a silver Honda bearing a Lahore registration number 471 picked me up from his village Kalar Saidan and the key man introduced him as Major Ahmed of FIA," sources said while quoting the confessional statement of Tanveer. They took Tanveer to a petrol pump at the Gujranwala Bypass and a deal between him and the gang was struck for Rs 1,00,000, which Tanveer paid them, sources said.