Islamabad: Abdul Hameed, 45, gave up his warehouse business in Saudi Arabia in January and relocated back to his hometown in northern Pakistan. There, he made real estate investments in the area as well as in Pakistan's largest cities, including Lahore and Islamabad, the nation's capital.
The father of four nevertheless embarked on a perilous journey to Greece earlier this year despite his relative wealth, and he ultimately ended up on an old fishing boat that capsized in the early hours of June 14 with about 750 illegal immigrants onboard.
According to Greek authorities, only 104 people on the boat are known to have survived, and 78 bodies of the dead were later brought ashore. The majority of those on board were from Egypt, Syria, and Pakistan.
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28 men, including Hameed, from Banah Valley in district Kotli of Azad Kashmir, the portion of the disputed Kashmir region administered by Pakistan, were among the migrants. Each paid local traffickers more than 2 million rupees (roughly $7,000) to arrange travel to Greece. Only two of them have been identified as survivors, while 21 are still missing and five have been reported dead.
The Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported on Saturday that 12 Pakistanis were among the survivors of the boat capsize, but it did not have figures for how many Pakistanis perished. According to national and international media, there may be up to 300 Pakistanis aboard the sinking ship.
In a phone interview with Arab News on Monday from Banah, Hameed's grieving father-in-law Mohammed Maqsood said, "Our friends and relatives in Greece have confirmed to us that Abdul Hameed died in the shipwreck.
He had substantial wealth and had made investments in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, but his desire for a better life for his children compelled him to travel to Europe at great risk.
According to Maqsood, Hameed's 24-year-old son originally intended to pay a travel agent to book the trip to Greece, but instead, his father hired a local trafficker.
Hameed, unlike other individuals who choose to use traffickers, possessed a valid passport and other forms of identification but preferred to avoid the hassle of obtaining a visa for Europe. In the first week of March, he took a flight from Islamabad to Dubai, then continued on to Egypt and Libya.
After spending more than a month in Libya, Hameed departed for sea.
Maqsood claimed that on June 2, he last spoke with his son-in-law.
In his last call, Hameed reportedly said, "I'll be calling you from Greece next time," according to Maqsood.
On June 10, the ship is believed to have left Tobruk, a coastal city in Libya, carrying passengers. International organisations, including Amnesty International, have urged Greece to provide more information about the tragedy and whether enough was done to prevent it, despite Greek authorities' claims that the people on board the ship repeatedly rejected offers of assistance.
There are over 2 million people living in Banah Valley in Kashmir, and local estimates indicate that at least one family member works and lives in Europe and sends money home.
About 20 men from the valley have used traffickers to travel to Italy and Greece in the past six months.
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The 28 men who left for Greece were all certain that nothing bad would happen to their loved ones, according to Maqsood. Even in our wildest dreams, the possibility of this tragedy never crossed our minds.
According to Hameed's father-in-law, traffickers from the valley were regarded as being "quite reliable" and had a history of successfully transporting customers to their destinations in Europe. In fact, it was the agents who were able to secure their release "through their personal efforts" when five men from the valley, among them his son-in-law, were detained in a police raid last month in Libya.
We kept in touch with them (after their release), and they were all content and happy as they boarded the ship from Libya to Greece, according to Masqood.
"The entire valley is in deep sorrow. We are currently awaiting the bodies of our loved ones so that we can inter them in our family cemeteries.
Every year, thousands of young Pakistanis take perilous journeys to escape the country's economic hardship, which includes record-high inflation, an economic slowdown, and devastating floods last year.
However, the shipwreck on Wednesday has prompted a crackdown on human traffickers in the nation. Last week, police in Azad Kashmir detained at least 12 individuals who were involved in transporting local youth to Libya in order to travel to Europe. According to a statement from the Pakistani government, a high-level investigation has been ordered to look into the human trafficking network believed to be responsible for the most recent tragedy.
The Federal Investigation Agency reported that during a quiet nighttime raid on Sunday, it had filed cases against four traffickers and taken three people into custody.
"They are directly involved in the trafficking of at least 20 men from the Gujrat region who are now reported dead in the Greece shipwreck," said Sub-Inspector Irtaza Ansar with the FIA in Gujrat to Arab News.
Ansar continued, "We have been carrying out raids for more arrests and trying to dismantle this illegal network of human traffickers who have been playing with the lives of innocent people.
The Ministry of Interior announced on Monday that it had set up camp offices in Islamabad and Azad Kashmir and established a coordination cell to confirm information from relatives of the passengers on the doomed boat.
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According to a notification from the ministry, the coordination cell will also help the families of the passengers collect DNA samples in accordance with the requirements set forth by the Pakistani Embassy in Greece and work with the Punjab Forensic Science Agency to prepare DNA reports to be sent to Greece.
