By Shakeel Anjum in The News, August 20, 2023
Islamabad : The statistics compiled by the Ministry of Interior, indicate that over one million illegal or undocumented Afghans are living in Pakistan. Most of the illegal Afghans are neither law neither abiding nor living quietly without creating difficulties for the government but creating unrest in the society by their involvement in criminal activities, a report said.
“It is disturbing to mention that several armed Afghan migrants have been found involved in May 9, treachery against Pakistan and attack on Pakistan Army. They were arrested by LEAs and shifted to jail,” the report maintained.
In the acuity of criminal activities executed by the Afghan gangsters, Pakistan is facing multiple problematic crime-generating issues which are growing with the passing of time, said in an intelligence report submitted to the Ministry of Interior, saying that most of the Afghanistan based gangs are involved in kidnapping for ransom, armed robberies, carjacking, mobile snatching, arms and drug smuggling and other atrocious offences. “The organised bunch of criminals being operated from Afghanistan, are dealing with terrorism, are found involved in supplying criminals attached with different terrorist outfits, particularly, to big housing societies to use them in land grabbing,” indicated the report, adding that such gangs are being operated from different locations of Afghanistan, primarily, in the Taliban dominated areas. It is pertinent to disclose that the Afghanistan based gangs of criminals provide fighters, equipped with lethal weapons, to the land grabbing mafia against hefty amounts for getting extremely perilous services, even as massacre of their rivals.
The exact number of Afghans living illegally or undocumented in Pakistan is myriad. However, the UNHCR estimates that over one million undocumented and illegal Afghans are living in Pakistan in different cities of Pakistan, while, the intelligence agencies claimed that the actual count of illegal refugees is much more than the estimated number, who are, primarily living in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), Baluchistan and other major cities including, Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. This number is likely to have increased since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021.
Many Afghans enter Pakistan by crossing borders illegally, because they are unable to obtain visa. This is due to the fact that the Pakistani government has made it ever more difficult for Afghans to get visas in recent years. Moreover, many Afghans are afraid of returning to Afghanistan because of the Taliban’s human rights abuses.
The human rights organisations criticise on the onslaught on Afghan gangsters by the LEAs without observing the fear of hike in crimes because of involvement of Afghan people in criminal activities including terrorism, kidnapping for ransom, loot and plundering, killings, armed robberies, mobile phone snatching and other sorts of street crimes.
In these circumstances, the current situation for the peaceful but undocumented Afghans in Pakistan is precarious. They are at risk of arrest, detention, and deportation. The human rights forums claims that such peaceful Afghan are facing discrimination and exploitation, but such international forums, without observing Pakistan’s financial as well as law and order condition, advocating that the Pakistani government needs to take steps to regularise the status of undocumented Afghans and to ensure that they are protected from human rights abuses but remain silent about suggesting any feasible solution.
In these state of affairs, when Pakistan was unable to impede and to manage their stay, International Organisation for Migration (IOM), a United Nation’s Migration Agency (UNMA), should play a responsible role for administering the undocumented refugees.
The UNMA is working for settling the Afghan refugees in different parts of the world and collecting data on the outflows of undocumented Afghan migrants at the border crossing points in an effort to better understand the migration movements of undocumented Afghan migrants returning to Afghanistan from Pakistan.
As many as 125,944 undocumented Afghanis have been repatriated to Afghanistan’s 5 provinces including Kandhar, Kabul, Helmand, Kundoz and Nangarhar through Chaman and Torkham borders during the last three months, a report said.
Between April and June 2023, 24,822 undocumented Afghan nationals spontaneously returned to Afghanistan, including 11,397 through the Torkham border point and 13,425 through the Chaman border point. Border authorities facilitated the return of 1,229 individuals due to the lack of legal documentation to remain in Pakistan. Therefore, information concerning these 1,229 individuals is not included in the count, the report maintained.
Although IOM registered 24,822 undocumented Afghan returnees at two border crossings, this may not reflect the total number of undocumented Afghan returnees. Moreover, for this study, only the head of household or representative of the family were interviewed. This means that the number of interviews conducted by the enumerators is lower than the number of returnees recorded by IOM. Between April and June 2023, IOM interviewed 1,134 respondents.
Between 4th to 17th June 2023, 4,276 undocumented Afghan nationals spontaneously returned to Afghanistan by the IOM, including 1,757 through the Torkham border point and 2,519 through the Chaman border point. Border authorities facilitated the return of 189 individuals due to the lack of legal documentation to remain in Pakistan, the documents added.
While, the UN’s Migration Agency, IOM are settling the Afghans, registered with them, in the different countries of the world including Germany, Canada and America through the UNMA. During the months from May to July, 2023, about 2340 Afghan have been sent to settle in Canada, Germany or America, the documented source said.
During the month of May this year, 700 Afghan refugees were transported abroad from Pakistan including 350 on 5th May and 350 on 16th May. 300 Afghan refugees were sent on 2nd June and 350 refugees on 20th June. In July, 2023, 990 Afghan have been settled abroad including 350 on 11th July, 270 on 18th July and 370 on 25th July, the document concluded.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/1101928-hike-in-organised-crime-due-to-afghan-gangs-feared
