LAHORE: Following the rising complaints of human trafficking and corruption, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has dismissed 76 officials from service, demoted nine to the lower ranks and sacked two others besides awarding punishments to 127 others. The agency punished 214 officials in total during the last four months of 2025.
The scope of action was expanded on a wider scale following the reforms introduced within the agency by forming the first Directorate of Internal Accountability (DIA) at the FIA Headquarters in August 2025 to control its corrupt officers. The FIA also replicated similar structures at the zonal level under zonal directors.
A senior official said the FIA introduced a strict accountability mechanism to round up the human trafficking elements with itself in the aftermath of the boat incidents in Europe and Africa in which a large number of Pakistanis lost their lives. In a high level inquiry, it was revealed that a number of FIA officials were also involved in human smuggling. Similarly, a report published by the IMF, titled Pakistan: Governance and Corruption Diagnostic, in November 2025 also indicated corruption in public departments as a major reason for their inefficiency.
In order to address the complaints, FIA Director General Riffat Mukhtar Raja relegated the powers of accountability to the level of additional director generals of the North and South zones and to zonal directors so that they could take meaningful actions against officers of up to the grade of 16.
The officials ranging from constables to deputy
directors found guilty in 214 departmental
inquiries
In addition, an online technology module for DIA was developed to track the progress and output of each inquiry from complaint till disposal level, including appeal process. This module provided ready access for the senior officers to monitor the progress of inquiries internally, the officer said.
As a result of the measures, the FIA penalised its officials from constable to the level of deputy directors in 214 departmental inquiries. The officer informed that 20pc punishments were awarded for immigration-related complaints, another 20pc were against the officials who had conducted faulty investigations and 40pc of punishments were awarded over indiscipline and inefficiency. The actions initiated by the zonal directors and additional director generals were in addition to these penalties, he said.
The FIA has 12 zones in the country from Gilgit-Baltistan to Karachi and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa while Azad Jammu & Kashmir is still out of its ambit.
A major shift was consolidation of complete process from complaints to conclusion of inquiries, including preliminary, fact-finding or departmental ones, under one directorate and taking it out of the ambit of human resource department of the FIA to avoid concentration of powers under one head and to attach high importance to the process of the DIA.
Earlier, he said, there was a branch working for the same task but it had segregated functions and it was not possible to track the complaints and analyse the data from a heap of information. Another main issue was the lack of a dedicated directorate which would work as a lynchpin for the director general FIA and the secretary Ministry of Interior and Narcotics Control. With the DIA, both issues were addressed and the DG FIA was able to streamline the whole process as it was a highly desired change for the key decision-makers, especially when the NCCIA issues surfaced.
About the reforms, which led to the major punishments to the FIA officers in such a large number, the source said the Minister for Interior and Narcotics Control had extended full support as he had assigned the task of clean-up of the FIA from inefficient and corrupt officials to address the issues of inefficiency and corruption. He said the minister himself visited the airports and the FIA establishments to propose action against the officials in order to improve service delivery.
