Published in The Express Tribune on June 09, 2026
Director General of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Dr Usman Anwar on Tuesday revealed that as many as 10,000 Pakistanis travelled to the United Kingdom on student visas and subsequently applied for political asylum.
The details were revealed during a meeting of the National Assembly (NA) Standing Committee on Interior, held under the chairmanship of Member of the National Assembly Raja Khurram Nawaz, which included a detailed briefing on illegal immigration, passport policy, and proposed reforms in criminal laws.
The revelation came after British High Commissioner to Pakistan Jane Marriott last week expressed concern over the rising number of Pakistani nationals applying for political asylum in the UK, noting that nationals currently feature among the top nationalities in such applications. Jane regretted that many of these cases were linked to misinformation and exploitation by unauthorised intermediaries rather than genuine eligibility.
Addressing the committee today, DG FIA said individuals illegally going abroad were bringing disrepute to Pakistan, adding that several countries, including those in the European Union, had raised the issue with Islamabad. He noted that 580 Pakistanis who travelled to Belarus had not returned, while 7,000 Pakistanis went to Azerbaijan on visit visas and also failed to come back. Anwar added that 175 arrested Pakistanis had been repatriated from Libya.
Anwar further said a new human trafficking route via Malaysia and Uzbekistan had also emerged. During 2025, he said, 39,786 individuals attempting to travel abroad without documents were offloaded, while more than 3,000 were stopped from travelling on the basis of the stop list and Interpol alerts. He said that there had been a 75% reduction in organised begging and a 31% reduction in the use of fake documents.
Meanwhile, State Minister for Interior Talal Chaudhry informed the committee that illegal immigration from Pakistan had decreased by 47%, a decline he said was confirmed by both Europe and the United States.
Chaudhry added that further facilitations would be introduced in the coming days and that a new policy had been prepared regarding lost passports. He said that if a passport was repeatedly reported lost, the matter was treated as suspicious and that every such case was investigated. He also noted that incidents of identity being sold occur worldwide.
Further, Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar, briefing the committee on proposed reforms in criminal laws, said the matter should be taken up in detail after the budget. Stating that although 80-year-old laws were not necessarily bad and remain effectively implemented in many countries, Tarar noted that changes to the laws were unavoidable in view of modern technology and new requirements.
The law minister added that no large-scale legal amendments had been made since 1971 and 1991, and that amendments to 55 laws related to the Code of Criminal Procedure had been proposed, with work on the reforms ongoing for the past three years.
He noted that at least four days would be required for detailed discussion on all the amendments, adding that many services had been digitised, cases were being registered online, and renowned criminal law experts had been consulted in preparing the reform package.
Tarar further termed some proposed reforms unnecessary, but said that the package as a whole had been prepared to improve the judicial system. Saying that current laws provide facilities for the accused but insufficient protections for the complainant, the law minister stated that comprehensive proposals were being presented as a bill before the committee for consideration as legislation.
