According to Pakistan’s Interior Minister, Sarfraz Bugti, there are 1.73 million Afghan nationals who are currently in Pakistan without a legal permit to be there. They present clear security risk for the country, the minister said, so they have to go.
Yesterday, Pakistani government authorities in Islamabad announced that all undocumented aliens, who are in the country illegaly, have until the end of October to leave Pakistan, or be deported if they fail to leave volunterily.
“We have given them a November 1 deadline,” Minister Bugti said. “If they do not go, then all the law enforcement agencies in the provinces or federal government will be utilized to deport them.”
As of November 1, Pakistan will also require valid passports and visas from any Afghans wishing to enter the country, the minister added. They were previously allowed in with just a national ID card.
Following a reacent spate of terrorist attacks, Pakistani government said that Afghan nationals were involved in 14 out of 24 suicide bombings in Pakistan this year.
“There are no two opinions that we are attacked from within Afghanistan and Afghan nationals are involved in attacks on us,” Pakistan’s Interior Minister declared.
“We have evidence.”
Most of the bombings have been blamed on Islamist group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), including two attacks at Pakistani mosques just last week, when at least 57 people have lost their lives. One of the bombers was identified as an Afghan national, according to the minister.
So far, the TTP has denied responsibility for the attacks.
Around 1,000 Afghan nationals have been detained by the Pakistani authorities over the past two weeks, according to the Afghan Embassy in Islamabad. An estimated 4.4 million Afghan refugees live in Pakistan, including 600,000 that came since August 2021, after Taliban overran Kabul.
According to some news reports that are quoting some unidetified government official, the expulsion of “illegal aliens” would be just the first phase of Pakistani governmen’s campaign. Everyone with Afghan citizenship would be expelled in phase two, and phase three would apply even to individuals with valid residence permits.
Pakistan started accepting Afghani refugees during the USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the Soviet-Afghan War that followed (1979-89). The flow of refugees continued during the civil war in 1990s and the rule of US-supported government of Afghanistan (2001-21).