The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Sunday arrested 10 “beggars” exempted from Saudi Arabia at Jinnah International Airport in Karachi. An FIA spokesperson said that the suspects were begging in the state despite traveling on Umrah visas. Those arrested are from Rajanpur, Kashmore, Nausharo Feroz, Lahore, Peshawar, Mohammad and Larkana. “The suspects have been transferred to the agency’s anti -human trafficking circle to take legal action,” the spokesman said.
Saudi Arabia became strict on the movement of Pakistanis
Subsequently, immigration officials tightened the investigation process at all airports in the country and investigated the passengers going abroad in every way. After these actions, last month, the federal government decided to declare begging as a crime by amending the Human trafficking Prevention Act, 2018. In this regard, the Ministry of Home Affairs also introduced the Human Trafficking Prevention (Amendment) Bill, 2024, which aims to change the existing law by adding “organized begging” to Section 3.
Begging under the guise of Umrah
The proposed changes in the concerned Act have been made when the issue of begging by many countries has been raised, in which Pakistan’s diplomatic missions in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, Iraq and Malaysia have also confirmed this. Given that Pakistani has been found involved in begging for Haj, Umrah and other religious pilgrims, diplomatic missions, as claimed in the amendment draft, begging and behind them He has urged to take strict action against the gangs.
In November 2024, the government put the names of 4,300 beggars in the Exit Control List (ECL) after a meeting between Home Minister Mohsin Naqvi and Saudi Arabia Ambassador Bin Saeed Ahmad Al Maliki. In recent weeks, hundreds of Pakistanis have been deported from the Gulf countries due to irregularities in documents, insufficient travel funds, procedural deficiencies, involvement in crimes, begging, etc. Meanwhile, to overcome the concerns of human trafficking, the government has also implemented strict investigation measures at the airports, in which the FIA directed its immigration sub -directors to take additional vigilance while approving the passengers to climb the aircraft. Has given. According to the instructions, a better system of profiling of the profiling of passengers traveling to Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, Senegal, Kenya, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, Iran, Mauritania, Iraq, Turka, Qatar, Kuwait and Kyrgyzstan should be implemented.
Saudi Arabia has become the number one destination for Pakistanis
According to the popular travel service app “Vigo” in the Middle East and North Africa region, Saudi Arabia has become a top destination for Pakistani passengers, where the number of Pakistanis coming to the state has increased by 100% annual increase.
Saudi Arabia’s tourism industry is rapidly expanding, operated by ambitious mega-projects such as a future city Neom and Lal Sea Project on the Red Sea, which is ready to redefine global tourism standards. Under its Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia is making significant efforts to promote tourism, and it remains a favorite destination for thousands of Pakistanis who travel annually for religious duties, especially when those pilgrimages during Ramadan And travel to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina for Umrah.
Saudi Arabia’s flyDil started operating in Pakistan with the first flight from Riyadh to Karachi
The low -cost airline FlyDil of Saudi Arabia has started operating in Pakistan with the first flight from Riyadh to Karachi, an airline officer on Saturday. FlyDil Saudi National Flag Carriers, headquarters at Jeddah, is a subsidiary of Saudia and was launched on 23 September 2017. Initially, it flew to destinations within the Kingdom, but expanded its network by starting flights from Dammam to Cairo in June 2022. The move by FlyDil to expand operations in Pakistan has been taken at a time when Saudi Arabia Wisdom wants to promote its tourism sector under the 2030 program, aims to over 150 million domestic and international tourists in the Kingdom by the end of the decade. To attract.
