Addressing a huge public gathering in Quetta on Saturday, Mahmood Khan Achakzai, chairman of the Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, strongly criticized the prospect of expelling Afghan refugees from Pakistan.
Achakzai urged the authorities to reconsider the decision of sending Afghan refugees back to Afghanistan as such actions will only exacerbate the existing tension between the two states.
He further objected to the indiscriminate targeting of Pashtun Afghans, tearing up their identity cards, demanding of bribes by police in Sindh and Punjab, and the incarceration of registered Afghans, deeming these actions wholly unacceptable.
Prior to this, caretaker Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti last Tuesday issued a stern warning to Afghan refugees in Pakistan, urging them to leave the country by November 1. Failure to comply would result in severe consequences, including the confiscation of their properties, and forced repatriation back to Afghanistan.
Bugti even threatened to test the DNA of those Afghans who have obtained Pakistani citizenship cards to confirm their genealogy. Pakistan’s military has endorsed this move, aiming to remove all Afghan refugees who sought refuge from the Taliban regime.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), at the end of 2022, the registration of about 1.3 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan was completed.
There are almost 1.6 million unregistered Afghan refugees living in Pakistan. Among them, tens of thousands have...
Read Full Story: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiWmh0dHBzOi8vYXNpYXRpbWVzLmNvbS8yMDIzLzEwL3Bha2lzdGFuLW11c3QtcmVqZWN0LWZvcmNlZC1yZXBhdHJpYXRpb24tb2YtYWZnaGFuLXJlZnVnZWVzL9IBAA?oc=5
Your content is great. However, if any of the content contained herein violates any rights of yours, including those of copyright, please contact us immediately by e-mail at media[@]kissrpr.com.