September 12, 2026
By Iqra Manzoor
LAHORE
An FIA team in Faisalabad has arrested a nikah registrar in Burewala for performing an online nikah of a minor girl with a man residing in Saudi Arabia.
According to the FIR registered on August 15, during immigration checks at Faisalabad airport, a passenger named Hira Firdous was stopped from travelling to Saudi Arabia after it was found her age was only 13. The marriage certificate she was carrying turned out to be fake.
She was reportedly being smuggled to Saudi Arabia on an Umrah visa, shown as the wife of an accused man, Fiaz Ahmad, who lives in Saudi Arabia. Investigation revealed that a local qari from Burewala had performed the online nikah of the minor girl, and he was later arrested from Burewala.
Fake nikahnama exposed during immigration check
The FIR states that during profiling at the airport, it emerged that the passenger was 13 years old and was travelling to perform Umrah with a man described as her husband. Her nikahnama was found to be fake, and she was found to be underage and being smuggled out of the country.
On questioning, the girl disclosed that she was 13 and had been forcefully married, without her consent, to Fiaz Ahmad, who lives in Saudi Arabia. Her nikah was arranged online by the local qari, Anees ur Rehman. A travel agent arranged her travel documents and received money from Fiaz Ahmad for the arrangement. Her family is also said to have received money from him.
She was travelling with a group on an Umrah visa on the instructions of the travel agent when immigration authorities offloaded her.
Based on these facts, the FIR states that offences under Sections 3/4/5 of the Trafficking in Persons Act, 2018 have prima facie been made out against the travel agent, Fiaz Ahmad, and the qari who performed the nikah, with the role of others to be determined during investigation.
The FIR invokes Sections 3, 4, and 5 of the Trafficking in Persons Act, 2018 against the accused. It does not separately cite provisions of the Punjab Marriage Restraint Act, despite the girl’s age being stated as 13. It remains unclear whether a distinct case under provincial child marriage law will also be registered by local police.
When contacted by Voicepk for further details, an FIA spokesperson said the investigation is ongoing and that additional details would be shared later.
The wider trend
The case adds to a wider pattern of human smuggling and trafficking flagged by the FIA in its nationwide operations. In 2025, the agency registered 7,039 cases out of 19,343 inquiries, including 643 cases under the Smuggling of Migrants (SOM) Act and 99 under the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Act. These operations led to 619 arrests for migrant smuggling and 60 for trafficking, with 3,413 cases sent to trial courts. The FIA also reported stopping 39,786 passengers from boarding international flights in 2025, with another 22,136 offloaded, and said it seized Rs 961.7 million in properties while freezing Rs 239.6 million in suspect bank accounts.
Separately, data compiled by the Social Sustainable Development Organisation (SSDO) through Right to Information (RTI) requests to police departments shows that 466 child trafficking cases were reported nationwide between January and June 2025 — 332 in Punjab, 127 in Sindh, five in Balochistan, and two in Islamabad. The same fact sheet recorded 133 child marriage cases in the same period, with 121 in Sindh, 12 in Punjab, and seven in Islamabad.