ANP slams action against illegal Afghan nationals, refugees

PESHAWAR: The Awami National Party (ANP) has expressed concern over the deadline set by the government for the illegal Afghan nationals and refugees to leave Pakistan.

The caretaker government has set November 1 the deadline for the Afghans and other foreigners who are living without legal documents, to leave the country.

Central Information Secretary of the Awami National Party Zahid Khan on Thursday accused the Pakistan law-enforcing agencies of harassing, arresting and forcibly expelling the Afghan refugees or nationals, saying it was a condemnable act and against the spirit of human rights.

The ANP leader said hundreds of the Afghans had fled Afghanistan soon after the Taliban came into power two years ago and temporarily settled in Pakistan to seek asylum or refuge in Western or other countries.

“This is totally inhuman that you send back those people to a country by force where they have no protection or amnesty,” Zahid Khan said and added that the interim government should not arrest or harass those Afghans who had legal documents or registration cards for living in Pakistan.

There were reports that after the announcement of eviction of Afghan nationals and non-registered refugees, the police and other law-enforcing agencies allegedly arrested hundreds of Afghans in Karachi, Sindh, Quetta, Balochistan, Islamabad, Peshawar and other parts of the country and after short detention sent them back to Afghanistan.

Zahid Khan, also a former senator, said like Imran Khan-led government, the interim government had provided an opportunity to the police officials and others to harass the Afghans on different pretexts and receive bribes even from those who had legal documents and registration for living in or travelling to Pakistan.

He said a majority of the Afghan families living in Peshawar and Islamabad had relatives in Western and other countries who send remittances on regular basis to near and dear ones in Pakistan.

The ANP leader said he and his party was not in favour of those Afghan who were involved in terrorism or other crimes in Pakistan and the law-enforcing agencies must deal with them in accordance with the law of the land.

According to data provided by the SAFRON (States and Frontier Regions) department about 3 million Afghans are living in Pakistan of whom only 0.6 million hold Proof of Registration (PoR) cards.

It says that about 22,039 Afghan refugees have settled in the merged districts (formerly tribal areas) and about 85,608 Afghans are living in the settled districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The interim government has decided to constitute a task force at the federal and provincial level to collect data on the Afghan nationals living in the country and all the PoR cards.

The national identity cards the Afghans have obtained through illegal means would be cancelled while their properties and other belongings would be confiscated after the expiry of the deadline.

However, according to the information available on the United Nations Higher Commissioner for Refugees website about 1.4 million registered Afghan refugees hold (PoR cards in Pakistan and most of them live in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.