Repatriation of illegal Afghans slows down

LAHORE: Following the requests of 11 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy and Qatar, for the resettlement of illegally residing Afghan citizens in other countries, there has been a significant reduction in the repatriation of illegally residing Afghan citizens from Pakistan.

According to the documents received by the “Jang”, it has been decided to complete the process of deportation of illegal Afghan citizens with blacklisted identity cards by December 31. 

The Punjab Home Department has shared the list of blocked and blacklisted ID cards provided by NADRA with all deputy commissioners of the province. District level committees have started the process of cancellation of unverified ID cards. According to the documents, 189 Afghan citizens residing illegally in Sialkot were raided and a case was registered against the owner of the brick kiln.

The deputy commissioners and DPOs have been ordered to check roadside restaurants, factories, brick kilns and houses in collaboration with intelligence agencies to identify illegally residing Afghan nationals and conduct comprehensive investigations in this regard. The report should be presented on December 27 in the provincial implementation committee meeting regarding the evacuation of illegally residing Afghan citizens.

The Punjab Information and Technology Board (PITB) and NADRA jointly developed an e-Police Post mobile app based on Ministry of States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON) data to speed up the process of identifying illegally staying Afghan nationals, but the desired results have not been achieved. According to the documents, 12,000 people have been verified with this software so far, but despite this, the IG Punjab has issued instructions to DPOs across the province not to trust the app and instead identify illegally staying Afghan nationals in their areas through local intelligence networks.

According to the documents, the Special Branch has said in its report that there are problems in running the e-Police Post mobile app due to internet and link problem in Lahore, Multan and Lodhran. However, all RPOs were directed to trace persons with blocked ID cards by remapping immediately. All deputy commissioners have been ordered to identify illegally staying Afghan nationals through the e-Police Post mobile app and to solve the internet link issues immediately.