The convoys of the Afghans facing pressure to leave Pakistan are going towards the border for fear of “insult” of arrest. The government of Pakistan is getting widespread public support on action against these migrants of Afghanistan. Darusral Islamabad wants to send them back to Afghanistan after the residence permit of 800,000 Afghans can be canceled. He has run the second phase of his Depotation Program. Sarakra there has already expelled about 800,000 Afghans without a document since 2023.
According to the United Nations refugee agency, from April 1, i.e. within 9 days, more than 24,665 Afghans have left Pakistan. Of these, 10,741 have been deported by the police and army there. “People say that the police will come and raids. The same fear is there. Everyone is worried about it.”
Nizam Gul has collected his belongings and is ready to return to Afghanistan. He said, “For a family person, there is nothing bad to see the police taking women from his house. Can there be anything more derogatory than this? It would be better to kill us instead.”
In one of the biggest informal Afghan settlements in the city situated on the coast, community leader Abdul Shah Bukhari has seen several buses leaving daily for the Afghan border about 700 km away. The chakravyuh of temporary houses has been increasing for decades in such settlements in Afghanistan to run away from frequent wars. But now, he said, “People are going back voluntarily .. What is the need to have trouble or harassment?”
“Every day is disturbed”
A truck driver Ghulam Hazrat said that he reached the Chaman border with Afghanistan after police harassment in Karachi for several days. “We had to leave our house. We were being harassed every day.”
In Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa along the Afghan border, the police climb to the mosque’s towers to order the Afghans to leave Pakistan: “Afghan citizens’ stay in Pakistan is over. They are requested to return to Afghanistan.”
The warnings of the police are not only for Afghans, but also for Pakistani landlords. Farhan Ahmed told AFP, “On Sunday, two police officers came to my house and told me that if an Afghan citizen is living here, they should be thrown out.”
Human Rights Watch has condemned the “derogatory strategy” used to pressurize the Afghans to return to his country. According to this, in Afghanistan, they have to risk harassment by the Taliban and have to face serious economic conditions.
‘His country is Afghanistan’
The people of Pakistan, which have sheltered millions of Afghan refugees for decades, are supporting them forcibly back. A university teacher Parvez Akhtar told AFP in a market in the capital Islamabad, “They eat here, live here, but are against us. Terrorism is coming from there (Afghanistan), and should leave Pakistan; he is their country. We did a lot for them.”
55 -year -old businessman Muhammad Shafiq said, “They come with a valid visa and do business with us.” Their views match the Pakistani government, which has blamed “Afghan -backed criminals” for increasing violence in the border areas since months and argued that the country can no longer support such a large migrant population.
However, experts believe that this campaign to remove Afghans is political. Since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, the relationship between Kabul and Islamabad has come down. Maliha Lodhi, former permanent representative of Pakistan to the United Nations, told AFP, “The time and way of their exile shows that it is part of Pakistan’s policy to increase pressure on the Taliban .. It should have been done in human, voluntary and gradual way.”
(Input-AFP)
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