Usman Siddique, 28, a constable in the Gujrat police who was among the 12 Pakistanis who survived the Greece boat tragedy, arrived at his hometown in Kaleki village on Gujrat’s outskirts on Friday, Dawn quoted his family sources as saying.

Despite paying $100 to the crew of the boat, he said hundreds of migrants on board the boat were not provided with life jackets and food.

He was on board the overloaded boat which sank in open seas off Greece on June 14. Among the 750 people on board, 350 Pakistani citizens were also aboard the migrant ship, according to Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah.

Since his return, Siddique has met with several people whose loved ones perished in the accident.

Siddique took a year’s leave to go to Italy along with his four friends, some being cops themselves. They had left Gujrat for Libya in May.

At his residence, Siddique told reporters that the crew collected money for life jackets before boarding the boat.

The boat was carrying at least 700 people with around 350 Pakistanis, mostly from Gujrat, Gujranwala, Mandi Bahauddin and Azad Kashmir regions, according to Siddique.

It merits here to mention that a report by The Guardian had claimed that Pakistani migrants were put on the lower deck which made it difficult for them to survive. People of other nationalities were allowed on the top of the ship, where it was safer, it added.

The report also said that Pakistanis were ‘maltreated’ by the ship’s crew if they tried to leave the lower deck or asked for fresh water.

Read more: Greece boat disaster: a Pakistani father’s anguish over his missing son

Siddique claimed the boat was stranded at sea after it went off course. Around 12 hours before the sinking, a helicopter took pictures and flew away, he said.

A cargo ship also stopped near the boat on the same day for more than an hour as the crew gave the people on board water bottles and bread, he added.

“Another ship arrived at the scene around 11pm and towed our boat with a rope, but as soon as the ship pulled the boat, it started breaking up,” the survivor said.

“There was a hue and cry as people were drowning. Some held on to the rope after falling off, which kept them alive”, Siddique said, adding that a tourist ship arrived early in the morning and managed to get over 100 people to the shore.

He claimed there were still around 20,000 Pakistanis in human traffickers’ safe houses in Libya, waiting to be sent to Italy via boat.

Read more: Mapped: Two human smuggling routes to Europe from Pakistan

Three of his friends were also at these safe houses while another, also a police constable, had lost his life in the tragedy.

“The trafficker had pledged to send us to the destination within 10 days of leaving Pakistan, but they never fulfilled the promises and commitments despite receiving money,” Siddique stated.

He was offered a legal permit to stay in Greece but declined the offer, as per family sources. Other Pakistani survivors who were still in Greece have accepted similar offers.