Over 800,000 ACC-holding Afghans face uncertainty as Pakistan rejects Kabul’s request to delay deportations….reports Asian Lite News
Pakistan has firmly rejected the Afghan Taliban’s request to extend the deadline for deporting Afghan refugees, confirming that it will proceed with the plan to expel all illegal immigrants and Afghan Citizen Card (ACC) holders from April 1
In a major policy decision announced on March 7, the Pakistani government said that all Afghan nationals in the country having Afghan Citizen Cards (ACC) will have to leave the country or face deportation and would be treated as illegal aliens after March 31.
“Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Programme (IFRP) has been implemented since November 1, 2023. In continuation to the Government’s decision to repatriate all illegal foreigners, national leadership has now decided to also repatriate ACC holders,” stated Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior.
“All illegal foreigners and ACC holders are advised to leave the country voluntarily before March 31, 2025. Thereafter, deportation will commence with effect from April 1, 2025,” read the statement.
The decision has put the fate of over 800,000 ACC holder Afghan nationals in jeopardy as Islamabad has rejected all requests from the Afghan Taliban in Kabul to delay the process of deportation by extending the deadline.
Government sources confirmed that Pakistan has notified the Afghan Taliban that its decision was final and there would be no relaxation. Moreover, the government has already instructed the relevant authorities and all provinces to make arrangements for the return of all Afghan refugees.
Pakistan has already deported over 800,000 Afghan nationals living illegally in Pakistan as part of its launched repatriation campaign since November 2023, when it had announced that there were about 1.7 million illegal people living in Pakistan, majority of them Afghans.
Since then, a crackdown was launched against illegal Afghan nationals who refused to return to their homeland. The Afghan Taliban also criticised Pakistan for taking a unilateral decision to return hundreds of thousands of Afghans, calling on Islamabad to review its policy. But Pakistan has maintained that it would go ahead with its repatriation campaign.
In the initial phase, only those Afghans who did not have any legal status in Pakistan were targeted and deported. But now, Islamabad has stated that it would start deportation of all Afghans, including ACC holders.
As per statistics, there are at least three million Afghan nationals living in Pakistan. While Pakistan insists on deportation and repatriation of Afghans in the country because of their illegal status, it also has time and again slammed Afghanistan for supporting anti-Pakistan terror groups like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and others to spread chaos and unrest in Pakistan.
Recent attacks on security forces in Pakistan by terrorists have been linked to Afghanistan. Initial investigations showed that Afghan nationals were also behind the recent terrorist attack targeting the Bannu cantonment area in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Since February 21, the Torkham border has also remained closed due to clashes between the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani forces over a dispute about a check post the Afghans were trying to construct in the area.
“Afghan Taliban deliberately initiated the dispute to have a reason to shut down the Torkham border because it is from there where deportation and repatriation of Afghan nationals would also take place”, said a government source.
