Despite the increasing crackdown on undocumented migrants, the caretaker government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has executed the unlawful immigrants who were slated to resettle in Western countries.
In a letter, the KP home department stated that anyone heading to third countries would not be arrested and that the federal Ministry of Interior had provided a list of unlawful immigrants traveling there.
The choice was made a few days after the deadline for voluntary restitution on November 1 had expired.
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“A number of undocumented foreign nationals have entered Pakistan; nevertheless, they intend to depart for Western nations such as the US, Europe, and others.
A top source told Dawn, “We have shared a list of these people with police, divisional commissioners, and all the officials concerned. The home department has executed them from arrest.”
Officials estimate that over 1.5 million Afghan nationals invaded Pakistan when the Afghan Taliban took control of Kabul in August 2021.
To be relocated to Europe, the US, and other countries, more than half of these people registered with the UNHCR. Despite the deadline for voluntary repatriation having passed on November 30, the process is still ongoing.
According to government data, 7,135 illegal Afghan immigrants—including 3,040 children—voluntarily departed Pakistan on Saturday and returned home through the Torkham border crossing.
At the South Waziristan district’s Angoor Adda border crossing, another 87 people—42 of them children—left. Since September 17th, 167,861 Afghan immigrants have traveled via KP to enter Afghanistan.
According to officials, there was a significant decrease in the number of undocumented immigrants at the border crossing.
They also mentioned that convicts involved in minor offenses were being transferred from KP, Punjab, and Azad Jammu, and Kashmir to the Torkham border crossing, aside from voluntary repatriation.
A senior FIA official stated, “There is a huge difference in the number of illegal immigrants showing up at the border crossing on Nov 30 and what I see today (Saturday)”; the source added that although the number of illegal immigrants had reduced significantly, they were still departing for Afghanistan.
According to him, 215 inmates—of them 194 were from 11 districts in Punjab and 21 from Peshawar—were also brought to Torkham before being sent back to Afghanistan.
Afghan families were sent directly to the border crossing upon arriving in Landi Kotal from other parts of the nation, even though the deadline for illegal immigrants had passed.
They were no longer housed in the transit camp meant for the families returning from other regions.
A number of the repatriating Afghans told local media representatives that they were tired of being mistreated by the police and other law enforcement officers and that they would not want to stay in Pakistan.
They said that most of the returning families had to sell off their personal belongings at cheap prices to raise funds for their return voyage to Afghanistan.
They did this because they either needed the money for their return or were unable to bring anything with them.
The continued repatriation of undocumented Afghan refugees is only being carried out through the Chaman crossing, according to Balochistan Home Minister Zubair Ahmed Jamali, who also announced on Saturday that two additional holding centers have been established in various locations.
He informed reporters, “We are sending undocumented immigrants to Chaman reaching Quetta from Karachi, Sindh, and Punjab,” and claimed more than fifty thousand of them have already left for their native country of Afghanistan.
He claimed that for immigrants arriving from south Punjab, Karachi, and other parts of Sindh, the government of Balochistan had set up a holding center in Dera Allahyar, a town near the border between Sindh and Balochistan.
Mr. Jamali also emphasized the continued investigation into forged identification documents, of which Nadra has already barred over 144,000.
