ISLAMABAD (Kashmir English): Director General Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Dr Usman Anwar Tuesday told a parliamentary panel that as many as 10,000 Pakistanis entered the United Kingdom on student visas and later applied for political asylum.
The details were shared with participants of a meeting of the National Assembly (NA) Standing Committee on Interior, held under the chairmanship of Member of the National Assembly Raja Khurram Nawaz.
The sitting was given a detailed briefing on illegal immigration, passport policy, and proposed reforms in criminal laws.
British High Commissioner to Pakistan Jane Marriott last week expressed concern to the Pakistani authorities 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.
Misuse of student visa
Jane regretted that many of these cases were linked to misinformation and exploitation by unauthorised intermediaries rather than genuine eligibility.
Briefing the committee, DG FIA said individuals illegally going abroad were bringing disrepute to Pakistan.
He said several countries, including those in the European Union, had raised the issue with Pakistan. 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.
DG FIA 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.
