Border crossing made conditional with production of passport

Independent Report

QUETTA: The caretaker Provincial Minister for Information, Jan Achakzai has stated that the Pakistan has successfully started implementation on the one document regime i.e., passport on international border with Afghanistan.
In an official statement issued here on Thursday, the Information Minister said that the passport offices established in Chaman and Killa Abdulah are fully functional. He mentioned that 1,000 passport tokens have been issued from the Passport office operational in Chaman with some 200 passports also issued from there.
Similarly, some 150 passports have been issued from the Passport office operating in Killa Abdullah, he maintained.
He informed that those Afghan nationals present in Chaman holding Tazkara are being allowed to cross into Afghanistan for one time. However, those coming from Afghanistan to Pakistan via Chaman are being asked for Passports to cross the border.
Similarly, those Pakistanis who want to come to Pakistan would be handed over to the FIA for legal action so that they may not cross the border illegally, he added.
Jan Achakzai made it clear that no one can be allowed to violate the one document’s passport policy for across the border movement.
He said that Pakistan is not a banana state, and as such no Pakistani or Afghan national is exempted from the passport to cross the border.
Everyone has to show the passport for movement at the international border as it is the state’s decision, the Minister Information insisted adding that implementation on the decision is being made in collaboration with all institutions of the provincial and federal governments. He said that the credit of decision on the one document regime goes to the Army Chief, Syed Asim Munir, caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar and Chief Minister, Mir Ali Mardan Khan Domki.
The decision to this effect has been made despite the international pressure exerted on the country, he mentioned.
He also went on to say that the government is ready to go to any extreme in the country’s larger interest.