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Kamal Siddiqui
ISLAMABAD, MARCH 21: Pakistan's immigration authorities have warned that the country would be ``over-filled'' with Indian saboteurs if Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif does not take back a decision to hand over immigration processing to the national airline, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA). The immigration wing has warned that the PM's decision would lead to ``all kinds of terrorists entering and leaving the country.''
In a statement prepared by the head of the immigration wing of the Federal Investigation Authority (FIA), the department has taken exception to the decision to let PIA handle immigration matters in the country.
The PM's decision comes after the chairman of PIA complained to the government that the national airline had paid millions of dollars in fines because the immigration staff at the Karachi and Lahore airports had allowed illegal aliens to slip through from Pakistan after paying heavy bribes to the immigration staff.
Acting on this, the Pakistan premier ordered that immigrationwould now be handled by the PIA at all airports in the country and that the immigration staff will only ensure that the persons leaving the country were not on the country's ``Exit control list'' (ECL).
The ECL has names of a number of important personalities on it. These are mostly politicians of opposition parties who are not allowed to leave the country and have cases being heard against them in Pakistani courts.
The PM has also ordered scrapping of passenger health specifications which were required at the airports as also immigration cards, since they were used by the staff at the airports to extract money from passengers.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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