GUJRANWALA: Four officials of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) were injured on Wednesday during a raid conducted to arrest alleged human smugglers, while two of the four suspects arrested by the agency were also freed by their armed accomplices.

According to the agency officials, a team of Gujranwala FIA circle conducted a raid in Kopra village of Sambrial to arrest a suspect Shahbaz Haidery, who was wanted in a dozen human smuggling cases.

During the raid, the FIA team arrested Haidery, Mazhar, Saeed Butt and Naeem Butt, recovering from them passports and fake visa stickers.

As the hand-cuffed suspects were being shifted to the FIA office in a police van under the supervision of Inspector Sulman Virk, their accomplices, hiding in a nearby house, opened fire on the of ficials. As a result, Inspector Virk, along with three other officials, was injured in the firing.Meanwhile, their accomplices freed two of the hand-cuffed suspects, Saeed Butt and Naeem Butt, and fled away with them.FIADeputyDirector Riaz Janjua has ordered immediate arrest of the fleeing suspects.

He appreciated Inspector Virk and his team for arresting Haidery, who was wanted by the FIA in a dozen cases. He added Haidery was running a big human smuggling network also operating in Turkey, Iran, Italy and Libya. He said the arrested suspects were being interrogated.

ARRESTED: The AntiCorruption Establishment (ACE) on Wednesday arrested a clerk of labour departmentallegedlywhile taking bribe, recovering marked currency from him.

According to ACE, on the direction of Regional Director Rai Naeem Ullah Bhatti, Gujranwala Circle Officer Rana Nawaz conducted a raid along with a judicial magistrate and arrested the clerk who was allegedly taking Rs15,000 bribe from a citizen for clearance of his father`s pension case.