LAHORE – The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday summoned a senior official of Personal Identification Secure Comparison and Evaluation System (PISCES) of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in person and sought a reply from Director General Immigration and Passport in a petition filed by a Pakistani immigrant in Italy for placing his name in blacklist instead of a proclaimed offender (PO).
Justice Shujat Ali Khan passed the order on the petition filed by Muhammad Aslam, presently residing in Italy, through his counsel Ch Shoaib Saleem Advocate. The lawyer argued before the court that the petitioner applied online for renewal of his passport after it expired in March 2017 but despite the passage of more than one and half a year he could not get his passport renewed.
The petitioner added that he repeatedly visited the passport and immigration office in Islamabad but to no avail. As a last resort, he hired some agent to get the status of his application for renewal of passport who brought him a letter which was written to the FIA Lahore office for a second time by the office of immigration and passport Islamabad.
Through this letter, the petitioner came to know that he has been blacklisted on the basis of information emailed by the FIA Lahore office to the DG immigration and passport. The counsel further argued that to the utter surprise of his client, the FIA provided information of a proclaimed offender who happened to carry the same name as that of the petitioner, Muhammad Aslam, and mentioned petitioner’s parentage and CNIC number instead of the actual accused.
The petitioner added that he was blacklisted due to connivance between the actual accused Muhammad Aslam, PO and resident of his village in Gujrat, and the FIA officials just to extort money from him.
Ch Shoaib Advocate pleaded that the petitioner is contributing to the state of Pakistan in form foreign remittances for the last more than five years but he is being humiliated back at home by the law enforcement agencies. Presently, he added, he status in Italy in that of an illegal immigrant and he has every apprehension that he might be arrested by the Italian police anytime which may cause him colossal damage.
Feeling convinced, Justice Shujat Ali Khan summoned senior official of FIA along with the complete record and sought a reply from Direction Immigration and Passport. The case was adjourned for 10 of July.
