TEHRAN – Iran has handed over 19,000 Pakistanis arrested for crossing the Iran-Pakistan border illegally in 2017.
Those arrested had entered Iran through unmanned routes scattered along the 900-kilometer border with the country, according to the Tasnim News.
A large number of the migrants were from the districts of Mandi Bahauddin, Gujrat, Sialkot and other areas of Punjab province.
Iran has constructed a 64-kilometer wall to stop the free cross-border movement of people; human smugglers instead used less-traveled routes in Mashkail, Mand-Bilo Turbat and Panjgoor to enter the Islamic Republic.
Many of such illegal immigrants who had managed to reach Iran were arrested in Turkey and Greek earlier this year and were deported to back to the country. A group of 27 illegal immigrants who were detained in Turkey was deported by air to Islamabad in early May.
