Pakistan rejected demands from the United Nations, human rights groups, and Western embassies to review the deportation plan for Afghan migrants.
Kabul 24: Pakistani officials said that the involvement of Afghan immigrants in attacks and cooperation with Islamist militants has weakened the country’s security.
On Friday, Abdul Nasir Khan, deputy commissioner of Khyber district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province said, “Pakistan has opened 12 more border centres to speed up the repatriation of tens of thousands of Afghan citizens without residency documents, ignoring calls from refugee and human rights groups to reconsider the mass deportation programme.
Khan added that the facilities at the Torkham border crossing have been tripled to allow more Afghan immigrants to return to their country.
On November 1, the Pakistani government’s one-month deadline for the voluntary return of Afghan refugees to their country ended, and the country intensified the process of arrest and forced deportation of these migrants.
Pakistani officials said that the main reason for the expulsion of Afghan refugees is the involvement of several Afghan immigrants in attacks by extremist Islamist militants in Pakistan, which has weakened the country’s security. The Taliban have previously denied Islamabad’s claim.
Taliban officials in Kabul said that Pakistan’s security is an internal problem and asked Islamabad to reconsider its decision.
Many Afghans sought refuge in different countries of the world, especially two neighbouring countries, Iran and Pakistan, in more than four decades of conflicts in Afghanistan.
According to the reports, with the return of the Taliban to power, more than 600,000 people have fled to Pakistan due to the Taliban’s policies against human rights, especially women’s rights.
Pakistani officials said that only 19,744 Afghans returned to Afghanistan through the Torkham border on Thursday. Meanwhile, 147,944 Afghans returned to Afghanistan from Pakistan in the last month.
Pakistani officials have said they will extend the deadline for Afghan patients and those who cannot travel from the country.
