SARAJEVO: Bosnian police arrested eight people suspected of being part of a human trafficking ring that smuggled at least 1,400 illegal migrants to Italy, authorities said on Wednesday.

“Members of the criminal group organized the trafficking of at least 1,400 illegal migrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Eritrea and China,” Dragana Kerkez, a spokeswoman for the interior ministry in Bosnia’s Serb-run statelet, told AFP.

The eight suspects were arrested in several towns across northern Bosnia during an operation carried out in cooperation with Europol and Croatian, Slovenian and Italian police.

During the raids, police also seized weapons, over 100,000 marks ($55,000) and used cars and boats, the spokeswoman said, adding that the group was also suspected of trafficking drugs.

The group used the Sky ECC encrypted communications network system, which was cracked in 2019 by a team of Belgian, Dutch and French investigators.

That gave authorities unprecedented access to the information on the practices of some of the most dangerous criminal groups, including ones in the Balkans.

Bosnia lies along the so-called “Balkan route” that migrants regularly use to reach the European Union.

According to Kerkez, the group trafficked migrants by first taking them to neighboring Croatia.

From there, they were transported in cars and trucks to Italy, she added.

Bosnian and Croatian authorities regularly arrest human traffickers in an ongoing crackdown hoping to stem the surge of migrants heading to the EU.

During the first nine months of the year, 1,430 migrant smugglers were arrested in Croatia, according to official figures — marking a nearly 40-percent increase compared with the same period last year.

In August, 12 migrants died when their boat capsized as they tried to cross a river between Bosnia and Serbia.

ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi on Wednesday vowed the government would identify expatriates who had “attacked” former chief justice Qazi Faez Isa’s car in London, threatening to register cases against them and cancel their Pakistani passports and identity cards. 

Isa, who retired as Pakistan’s top judge last week after what is widely considered to be a controversial stint in office, arrived in London on Tuesday night to attend an event at Middle Temple, one of the four Inns of Court entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers.

Former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party had organized a protest outside the event venue ahead of the former judge’s arrival. The PTI accuses Isa of being aligned with the coalition government led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, alleging that it had tried to provide an extension in office to him through a controversial constitutional amendment that was passed earlier this month. The government rejects these allegations. 

Video footage widely circulated online on Tuesday evening showed angry Khan supporters running after Isa’s car in London, with a few of them hitting the vehicle with their hands before it sped away. 

Pakistan’s high commissioner to the UK, Dr. Mohammad Faisal, condemned the attack.

“It is condemnable, we will take action,” he told reporters in London. 

State-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) said Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi had “strongly condemned” the attack on Isa, who was traveling in a Pakistani High Commission vehicle in London.

Naqvi urged Pakistan’s National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) to identify the suspects through available footage and vowed that cases would be registered against them in Pakistan. 

“Naqvi stated that the attackers’ ID cards and passports will be blocked,” APP said. “Immediate action would be taken to revoke their citizenship.”

Naqvi said the ministry would seek the federal cabinet’s approval in revoking the alleged attackers’ citizenships. 

“He also questioned why security was not provided to Qazi Faez Isa despite the fact that he was receiving threats,” APP said. 

It was under Isa’s tenure as chief justice that Pakistan’s top court denied Khan’s PTI its iconic bat symbol ahead of Feb. 8 general elections, saying the party had failed to hold intra-party elections. The verdict meant all PTI candidates had to contest elections as independents, which angered Khan supporters, who accused Isa of being biased in favor of the Sharif government. 

Khan, arguably Pakistan’s most popular, was ousted from office after a parliamentary no-trust vote in April 2022 and has since waged an unprecedented campaign of defiance against the country’s powerful military, government and what his party considers pro-establishment judges. 

Khan has been in prison since August 2023 after being convicted on several charges ranging from corruption to treason that he says are politically motivated.