Offloaded From Freedom
Asem Mustafa Awan
Islamabad: For Razia Bibi, the journey was never meant to be political. It was meant to be personal. At 58, with most of her life already behind her, she was not chasing opportunity or escape.
She was travelling to Bangladesh to see her mother—an elderly woman she had not seen for nearly four decades, a mother who had waited through silence, uncertainty, and the slow erosion of hope. It was to be, perhaps, a final meeting. Instead, it became another chapter of confinement.
On February 27, 2025, Razia Bibi arrived at Allama Iqbal International Airport with valid travel documents and a Dhaka-bound ticket. She never boarded the flight. Officials of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) stopped her, questioned her, and offloaded her. No written reason was provided. No formal charge was communicated.
Her right to travel ended not with a stamp, but with silence.
For most travellers, offloading is an inconvenience. For Razia Bibi, it was something far crueler: the denial of closure.
According to her petition, Razia was born in Bangladesh and was kidnapped as a young woman some 35 years ago, trafficked into Pakistan, sold in Karachi, and forced into marriage with the man who bought her. She was later shifted to Kasur. Over time, she rebuilt her life in captivity, acquired Pakistani citizenship, and learned to survive within boundaries she did not choose.
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Only recently, through social media, did she reconnect with her Bangladeshi family. Her mother, now frail with age, pleaded to see her daughter one last time. Razia agreed. Papers were prepared. Tickets were purchased. Hope—long suppressed—was allowed to surface.
It was crushed at the immigration counter.
When no relief came from the interior ministry or the FIA itself, Razia Bibi approached the Lahore High Court. Her petition did not ask for privilege. It asked for justification. Why was she stopped? On what legal basis?
And under whose authority was her freedom curtailed?
Her counsel argued that on the basis of suspicion and assumptions, thousands of Pakistani citizens—particularly the poor—are routinely prevented from travelling abroad. In Razia’s case, the offloading of an elderly woman with a documented history of trafficking and abuse exposed the inhumanity of a system that sees risk everywhere but accountability nowhere.
The court’s response was measured. Justice Ahmad Nadeem Arshad directed the FIA to decide Razia Bibi’s application within 15 days. The petition was disposed of. The law moved, as it often does, cautiously and procedurally.
But for Razia, time is not procedural. It is biological.
Each delay brings her closer to a future in which her mother may no longer be alive to receive her. Each unanswered application becomes another locked gate in a life already defined by confinement.
Her story is not an exception. It is a mirror.
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Pakistan today increasingly resembles a country where movement is conditional and freedom is discretionary. Airports—meant to be gateways—have become choke points where lives are paused, ambitions stalled, and dignity suspended at the whim of unseen checklists. The poor, the undocumented-looking, the traumatised, and the voiceless are treated not as citizens but as risks to be managed.
Those with means leave quietly—through legal channels, foreign passports, or influence. Those without means attempt desperation. They board unsafe boats, trust smugglers, and drown at sea with the sole consolation that they tried to be free. Their deaths are mourned briefly, their motives misunderstood. What is rarely acknowledged is what their choices say about the conditions they are fleeing.
When a country becomes so suffocating that death feels preferable to remaining, the problem is not migration. It is governance.
Razia Bibi did not attempt to flee illegally. She did not falsify documents. She did not deceive the state. She stood at the counter as a lawful citizen asking for nothing more radical than to see her mother before it was too late.
And yet, she was treated as suspect.
The cruelty here is not loud. It is bureaucratic. It wears uniforms and speaks in procedures. It does not beat or shout; it delays, deflects, and denies. It offers no remedy, no explanation, no appeal in real time. By the time the law responds, the human moment may already be lost.
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This is how a country becomes a prison camp without walls.
High-handedness by officials who control the passage to freedom does not merely inconvenience travellers; it reshapes society. It teaches citizens that dignity is negotiable, that rights exist only until an officer disagrees, and that silence is safer than protest. It explains why brain drain is not a trend but a symptom—of despair, of distrust, of a belief that justice is something to be escaped rather than sought.
Razia Bibi has already lived through one abduction. She was trafficked once, stripped of agency, and forced into a life she did not choose. Nearing 60, she now finds herself trapped again—not by criminals, but by the state meant to protect her.
Her mother is still waiting. That fact alone should haunt every official involved.
The law has spoken cautiously. It has asked the FIA to decide. But the deeper question remains unanswered: who watches the watchers? Where is the remedy for those whose lives are held hostage by arbitrary power? And how many reunions will be denied before accountability becomes more than a court direction?
Razia Bibi’s case is not just about one woman and one flight. It is about a system that confuses control with security and suspicion with governance.
A nation cannot claim to protect its borders while imprisoning its own people within them.
The article is the writer’s opinion, it may or may not adhere to the organization’s editorial policy.
Asem Mustafa Awan has extensive reporting experience with leading national and international media organizations. He has also contributed to reference books such as the Alpine Journal and the American Alpine Journal, among other international publications.
