Better late
than never
It is truly better late than never when the caretaker Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti announced a November 1 deadline for illegal immigrants in the country to leave Pakistan, otherwise, all law enforcement agencies would deport them.
The very announcement was made at a press conference in Islamabad the other day. It was also briefing to the media on details of the decisions taken during a meeting of the apex committee on the National Action Plan at the PM’s House.
Needless to mention here is that the Army Chief, Federal Ministers, Chief Ministers and heads of all civil and military agencies were present at the meeting.
The most important thing that was decided was that the welfare and security of a Pakistani are most important for us over any country or its policy. The first decision taken is about our illegal immigrants who are living in Pakistan through illegal means.
Mr. Bugti made it clear that we have given them a deadline of Nov 1 to willingly return to their countries and if they don’t, all law enforcement agencies (LEAs) of the state and provinces will deport them, and that all stakeholders were “taken in the loop” for the decision
Then separately, interim Information Minister Murtaza Solangi said illegal immigrants now had 28 days to leave Pakistan.
Bugti said the same deadline would apply for entry into Pakistan without a passport or visa, adding that people would not be able to enter the country without those documents after Nov 1. Entry without the aforementioned documents was not allowed in any other country of the world. Bugti said those arriving with legal documents and who formally entered the tax net would be promoted.
It was mentioned that there were currently 1.73 million unregistered illegal Afghans living in the country.
E-tazkiras (electronic Afghan identity cards) would be accepted from October 10-31 and afterwards the abovementioned passport and visa policy would apply.
Furthermore, Nov 1 onwards an operation would kick off, by a task force already created in the interior ministry, that would target illegal properties and businesses owned by illegal immigrants or that were being run in collaboration with Pakistanis.
The intelligence agencies and LEAs will find them and the authorities will seize those properties and businesses. The Pakistanis involved in this facilitation will be sentenced as per the law.
The task force would also initiate proceedings to crack down on illegal identity cards and passports since they were used for nefarious means.
Bugti said DNA testing would also be utilized to detect such people who were Pakistani identity cardholders despite not being Pakistani.
A universal helpline number and a web portal were also being launched for people to come forward as anonymous informants to give information about illegal ID cards, illegal immigrants and other illegal practices such as smuggling and hoarding.
Bugti also talked about the establishment of joint checkposts to curb smuggling and hoarding, adding that crackdowns on illicit money transfers and power theft would also be ramped up. Similarly, he said strict measures were also going to be taken against narcotics.
The state media had reported a day ago that the caretaker government has decided to evict 1.1m foreigners living illegally in Pakistan because of their involvement in funding and facilitating terrorists and other illegal activities.
The development comes as the most recent in the state’s crackdown on Afghan refugees.
What’s important to mention is that September has seen an alarming rise in the rounding up and detention of Afghan refugees. The government cites illegal immigration and rising crime as the reasons behind the crackdown.
Around 1.3m Afghans are registered refugees and 880,000 more have legal status to remain in Pakistan, according to the latest United Nations figures.
Police and politicians have said a recent round-up targets only those without legal status and is in response to rising crime and poor regulation of immigration that is straining resources. Meanwhile, Afghans say the arrests have been indiscriminate.
As per the official data there were 24 suicide attacks till now since January with “14 bombings carried out by Afghan nationals” such as the Peshawar Police Lines blast, Qilla Saifullah operation, Zhob Cantt attack and last week’s attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Hangu.
Matter of fact remains that there are attacks in the country from Afghanistan and Afghan nationals are involved in those attacks, as also revealed by the Interior Minister claiming to have evidence present for that and matter was taken with Afghan authorities.
Therefore, there is a need to strengthen counter-terrorism departments, and Pakistan has the capacity and capability to cover this war of terrorism and state of lawlessness which has been created.
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