Islamabad (TDI): The government has decided against extending the March 31 deadline for illegal Afghan nationals to leave Pakistan.
During a meeting held at the interior ministry, the government decided to strictly enforce the March 31 deadline for the expulsion of illegal immigrants, according to Geo News.
Pakistan previously had rejected the Afghan government’s request to extend the stay of Afghan immigrants residing illegally in Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
Meanwhile, the government has also sought the record of Afghan students in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from the provincial government by March 27 for updating the Foreign National Security Cell’s dashboard related to foreign citizens and needed the data of Afghan students.
The decision to expel illegal immigrants comes as part of efforts being made to improve the security situation amid increasing terrorist attacks in Pakistan — which the government has time again blamed on terrorist groups operating from Afghanistan.
So far, as many as 878,972 Afghan citizens living in Pakistan illegally have returned to their country, according to media reports.
Read More: Pakistan denies detaining 800 Afghan citizens
It is to be mentioned here that Pakistan hosts 2.1 million documented Afghans.
There are hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghan citizens also living in Pakistan for decades.
“Out of the total 2.1 million, 1.3 million Afghan immigrants are those who have obtained Proof of Registration Cards. More tha 52 percent of them are in Kyber Pakhtunkhwa,” said United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesperson Qasier Afridi.
He added that there were about 800,000 Afghan nationals, who had obtained ACC cards and majority of them were living in KP.
Read More: Pakistan Warns UN of Terror Threat from Afghanistan
Pakistan has been hosting millions of Afghan nationals for around five decades.
Hundreds of thousands of them returned to their country in the last few years but still more than 2.1 million are living in KP and other provinces.
