KARACHI, March 26: Investigators have not made any significant progress in the case pertaining to the escape of a number of illegal job-seekers from FIA custody at the Quaid-i-Azam International Airport.

As many as 114 illegal job-seekers had arrived here on March 19 by a Qatar Airways flight after being deported from Muscat (Oman). Of the total, 102 deportees, mainly belonging to the interior of Sindh, managed their getaway by smashing a portion of the glass wall of the immigration counter.

An FIR against the escaped deportees was lodged at the Airport police station for damaging public property and for deterring the immigration staff from executing their official duties.

FIA officials said all the illegal job-seekers were deported from the Gulf state on emergency passports, issued by the Pakistani mission.

Surprisingly, 12 out of the 114 chose to stay behind and not partake in the venture. They were later handed over to the Anti-human Smuggling Circle of the FIA for further legal action. The officials said these job-seekers mainly hailed from different areas of Punjab.

The Station Investigation Officer of the Airport police, Inspector Najam, told Dawn that the investigators were still waiting for the details of the escaped job-seekers from the FIA authorities. “The FIA staffers are still in the process of retrieving the required data of the absconders,” he added.

He said the escaped deportees hailed from different areas of Sindh, including Thatta, Badin, Hyderabad, Dadu and Larkana. “Once we are provided with the information of the escaped men, we will intimate the details to the offices of the District Police Officers (DPOs) concerned,” he added.

The SIO said the police authorities concerned would inform the investigators whenever an absconding deportee was arrested by them. “If an absconder in a case is arrested anywhere in the province, he will be handed over to us for further legal action,” he added.

The FIA’s additional director at the airport, Abdur Razzaq Cheema, however, said that a complete list of the escaped deportees was already handed over to the police. “We have also given them the photographs and photocopies of their emergency passports to the police,” he added.

The FIA official said the deportees fled from the FIA’s custody after they went through the immigration process. “All the details about them had already been stored in our system before they managed their getaway,” he added.