Afghan nationals without visas to be sent home immediately

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Friday again made it clear that the Afghan nationals living in Pakistan without visas would be sent back home and they were not going to get concessions any more.

To ensure that process doesn’t face any hurdle, it was also made clear that no one in Pakistan would be allowed to give refuge or house the Afghan nationals.

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“People ask the question until when the government will continue dealing with the burden of Afghan refugees,” said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif who was chairing a meeting on the issue of sending the Afghans back home after decades of hosting millions of them.

On the other hand, the prime minister expressed serious concerns over the involvement of Afghans in terrorism acts in Pakistan.

Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir, the chief ministers of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan as well as top federal cabinet members and officials were among those attending the meeting.

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However, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi opted to skip the meeting.

NO ONE TO BE ALLOWED TO HOUSE AFGHANS

The country’s leadership was given a detailed briefing on the subject during which were informed that over 1.47 million Afghans had returned by Oct 16 since the start of the phase-wise repatriation.

Salient points of the briefing show that only valid visa holder Afghan nationals would be allowed to stay in Pakistan while the government is increasing the exit points along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to expedite the process.

Moreover, people would be made a stakeholder in the process and the government is not going to allow anyone to provide shelter or house the Afghans.

The meeting decided to ensure all the recommendations were implemented and asked the provinces to help execute the plan.

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Later, Defence Minister Khawaja in a post shared on X and written in Urdu said “the time has come to end the five decades long “forced hospitality”.

Read more: Time to end forced hospitality, terrorism source to pay the price: Khawaja Asif

AFGHAN NATIONALS ARE INVOLVED IN TERRORISM

Speaking on the occasion, Shehbaz said Pakistan was perturbed by the fact that the Afghans had been involved in terrorism activities while using their country’s territory. It was despite the fact that Pakistan had housed millions of Afghan refugees for decades.

He recalled how Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar and top officials visited Kabul and told the Taliban regime to stop the terrorist groups from using Afghanistan to carry out activities in other countries — a policy that failed to yield the desired results.

The prime minister vowed that the government would make sure that all the Afghan nationals residing illegally in Pakistan were repatriated.