Crackdown on illegal migrants at full throttle as 24 Afghanis held in Quetta 21 from Narowal

UN agencies all ready to support Pakistan in managing Afghan refugees.

Islamabad/Narowal_A crackdown against illegal Afghan immigrants in Quetta city is continued as authorities captured two dozen of them for violating the country’s immigration rules,

The Government of Pakistan is strictly implementing its decision to expel all illegal immigrants from the country and it has launched a stringent crackdown on the aliens having no legal status.

In the fresh swoop in the Balochistan capital, police arrested 22 illegal Afghanis.

The authorities have collected data on 24,000 Afghan immigrants.

According to police officials, 116 illegal Afghan migrants have been arrested so far and 45 cases have been registered against them.

Police said that they would continue their action against the illegal aliens residing in the province till November 1.

It bears mentioning that the government has given a deadline for all the illegal immigrants to leave Pakistan by October 31.

In its yesterday’s meeting, the Sindh Apex Committee decided to start a simultaneous operation against illegal immigrants in all seven districts of Karachi from November 1.

The Ministry of Interior was directed to prepare maps and charts in this regard.

While,

As many as 21 illegal immigrants have been arrested in Shakargarh tehsil of Narowal district.

According to DSP Shakargarh, the crackdown was continuing in Dinpur road of Riaz market where illegal immigrants were residing.

DSP further said that cases have been registered against illegal immigrants under the Foreign Act. All the arrested illegal immigrants were sent to Narowal Jail on judicial remand.

Earlier, the government had given a deadline till Oct 30 to illegal immigrants for leaving the country otherwise they will be deported after Nov 1.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) are ready to give support in registering and managing the Afghan nationals, the agencies said on Saturday.

The statement came amidst the government’s crackdown on illegal immigrants residing in the country since decades.

UNHCR and @UNmigration are appealing to Pakistan to continue its protection of all vulnerable Afghans who have sought safety in the country and could be at imminent protection risk if forced to return.https://t.co/ijtC9bYphd

— UNHCR Asia Pacific (@UNHCRAsia) October 7, 2023

Both the UN agencies stated in a joint statement that they had a “longstanding and strong collaboration” with Pakistan and stood ready to “provide support in developing a comprehensive and sustainable mechanism to register and manage Afghan nationals, including those who may be in need of international protection”.

It added that both the UNHCR and IOM said they were appealing to Pakistan to “continue its protection of all vulnerable Afghans who have sought safety in the country and could be at imminent risk if forced to return”.

Earlier, Pakistan had said on Friday that it would repatriate all illegal immigrants including hundreds of thousands of Afghan nationals in orderly phases rather than in one go.

Pakistan’s announcement on Tuesday of a Nov. 1 deadline for people to leave or face forcible expulsion has frayed already soured relations with Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers, who said the threat to force out Afghan migrants was “unacceptable”.

“It will be done in phases,” the foreign office spokeswoman, Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, told reporters in Islamabad. She added the process would follow an orderly manner, in contrast to what she called some misconceptions that all of them would just be expelled in one go.

She said it could start with people with criminal records, such as someone involved in a crime or smuggling. “We will be looking into each case individually,” she added.

She did not have exact data on the total number of illegal immigrants, including Afghans. Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti said on Tuesday some 1.73 million Afghans in Pakistan had no legal documents and the number of Afghan refugees in Pakistan totalled 4.4 million.

Bugti said that the decision was taken by the country’s civil and military leaders in view of rising attacks by Islamist militants, alleging that 14 out of 24 suicide bombings in Pakistan this year were carried out by Afghan nationals.

Pakistan has hosted the largest number of Afghan refugees since the Soviet invasion of Kabul in 1979.

Aid officials say Afghanistan is already facing a humanitarian crisis and the forced repatriation of large numbers of people would compound dire problems there.

Decades of war in Afghanistan largely ended in mid-2021 when the Taliban re-took control as U.S.-led foreign forces were withdrawing and a U.S.-backed government collapsed.

Pakistan’s foreign minister Jalil Abbas Jilani defended the order for the departure of illegal immigrants, saying no other country allowed illegal immigrants to stay and live.

“So, accordingly, this is in line with the international practice that we have taken this decision,” the minister said.