Five Pakistanis held prior to boarding a UK flight

Five Pakistani nationals have been arrested at Islamabad Airport as they were waiting for their boarding call for a UK-bound flight. All five were believed to have been detained under suspicion of offences relating to immigration.

The flight itself, an Airblue ED 200 plane, did manage to leave at the scheduled time and arrived in the early evening at Manchester Airport just fifteen minutes late. So far, Manchester Police have not been asked to intervene in the matter or launch their own investigation, nor have they received any requests for enhanced security as experienced after the attempted suicide attack in the US last month.

An Airblue spokesperson confirmed that the five passengers had passed the check-in counters and received their boarding passes but these were later discovered to be for flights bound for Dubai. It was in the departure lounge that the group was spotted by airport authorities as they attempted to swap their passes for those bound for Britain. The five were all intercepted at the boarding gates and handed into the custody of federal officials.

CCTV footage of the departure lounge revealed that the group had met up with an additional group of five people who were all British nationals and had booked their flights to Manchester. Camera operators watched on as the two groups exchanged boarding passes before the British nationals boarded the Dubai flight.

The men will be charged with possessing fake visas for the UK as well as carrying boarding passes in a different name. The group has been named as Muhammed Usman,  Raja Fizal Ul Haq, Imran Asgher, Raja Zia Ul Haq and Abid Hussain.