JUI should stop defending illegal immigrants
JUI should stop defending illegal immigrants
Siddiq Baluch
Editor's Blog

QUETTA: Off and on, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the JUI supremo, is found defending the presence of illegal immigrants from Afghanistan on the Pakistani soil presumably for political advantage to him or his party. Otherwise, there is no point in defending the illegal immigrants from any part of the world, including Afghanistan, in this country.

QUETTA: Off and on, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the JUI supremo, is found defending the presence of illegal immigrants from Afghanistan on the Pakistani soil presumably for political advantage to him or his party. Otherwise, there is no point in defending the illegal immigrants from any part of the world, including Afghanistan, in this country.

It is a known fact that hundreds of thousands of Afghans had managed to get Pakistani documents, including CNICs and Passports while some other shrewd people got residency certificates of Pakistan by bribing the Government officials at local level.

There was a report that more than 90 per cent Afghans got residency certificates from Tehsil office in Qila Abdullah in Balochistan while the number of local people was less than 10 percent. For this, the office records were burnt in mysterious circumstances. Later on it was reported in the media that Mulla Akhtar Mansur also got the local residency certificate from the same office.

Thus the illegal immigrants had become voters of vested interest or turned into a vote bank of some of the Pakhtun dominated political parties. However, isolated cases are found that some other parties had also helped secured Pakistani documents for their fovourite Afghans. But they are fewer in numbers. It includes the ruling Pakistan Muslim League who had raised the prestige of some Afghans by giving them some position in the party.

There are two categories of Afghans present on the Pakistani soil. The foremost were the Pawindas or the seasonal migratory Afghan tribesmen who crossed to Sindh and Punjab and settled there for economic reasons. They were welcomed as they were found to be cheap labour. They were not big in number. Thus they merged with the local society and now they became inseparable part and parcel of the local society.

They left no economic or social impact on the indigenous society for being smaller in number. However, the bulk migration was patronized by the world community, including Pakistan, as they disapproved and rejected the overthrow of monarchy in Afghanistan or making the country a democratic republic.

The world community, under the leadership of the United States, thought that the KGB was involved in the overthrow of monarchy and the pro-Soviet young Army officers were behind the successive military coups in Afghanistan in 1970s. It was thought that Afghanistan is no more a buffer State between the erstwhile Soviet Union and the Capitalist world.

Foreign interference in Afghan affairs was the main cause of civil war there and as a result more and more Afghans were encouraged or threatened to leave their home and become privileged refugees in Pakistan where the world community and the Government provided all the available facilities to them. It was meant to give a bad name to the Government in Kabul so that the message of bad governance is conveyed to all and sundry.

Millions of the Afghans were given refugee status by the United Nations and refugee camps and tentage villages were established for them. The world community financed the presence of millions of refugees and finally they were registered for which they were entitled for certain privileges.

The third category of Afghans is the illegal immigrants crossing the international frontiers to Pakistan in tens of thousands almost daily and without fail.

There is an agreement between the Government of Pakistan and the UN Agency for Refugees or UNHCR and recently an agreement is concluded with the United Nations Agency that all the registered refugees will leave the country by March next. After that period, they will be declared illegal immigrants and the law will take its natural course after that deadline for voluntary repatriation of all refugees.

Now the Government had linked up both the categories of Afghans, the illegal immigrants and as well as the refugees, allowing them to leave the country voluntarily by March next. However, the Government is under severe pressure from the local population and also from some of the political parties to expel all the illegal immigrants first without waiting for March deadline.

The security establishment is also of the same view that illegal immigrants should not be given any concession as all Afghans present on the soil of Pakistan are a serious security risk for the State of Pakistan and its people in general.

It is an undeniable fact that the illegal immigrants and the refugees from Afghanistan are facing no threat in Afghanistan where an elected representative Government is ruling the country. The Taliban foot soldiers are fighting the Government troops and not involved in war against the people or any section of the society.  Thus they are facing no threat from Taliban back in Afghanistan if they returned to their homes.

It is a fact that all the Afghans on Pakistani soil are economic refugees and they are in Pakistan purely and simply for economic reasons. They are enjoying better economic prospects comparing with the indigenous people in Balochistan, Sindh and KPK or their fellow Afghans back in their country.

According to an official assessment, more than a million jobs are occupied by the Afghans, both refugees and illegal immigrants. If they are sent back to their home voluntarily or involuntarily the jobs will be made available for the locals and an army of unemployed people in all parts of Pakistan.

Both for security and economic reasons, the Afghan immigrants should be send back to their home at the earliest so that the people should face less problems of security and economic in nature.

It is suggested to the Balochistan Government to launch a full campaign against the illegal immigrants and discourage their presence in Balochistan for a variety of reasons, including security and economic.

First of all, they are should be chased out from the major population centres, mainly from the Provincial Capital, and push them closer to the international frontiers with Afghanistan for tactical reasons. They should not be allowed to earn any livelihood so that they should go back to their home at the earliest.

Since their stay in Pakistan is illegal and not supported with their travel papers, they should be arrested, tried in courts of law before they are deported to their country. The campaign should be launched to accelerate their return to Afghanistan only and not to punish them. Such a campaign should be started prior to the deadline fixed for the Afghan refugees registered with the United Nations.

Being a smart politician, the JUI chief, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, had started calling all the illegal immigrants as “non registered” Afghans. All the political leaders and parties should desist from supporting the illegal immigrants in Pakistan and stop defending their petty personal and group interests.

Finally, the Government should complete its border management plan at the earliest so that border is sealed for all illegal immigrants in future. Only legal immigrants possessing complete international travel papers should be welcomed in Pakistan with full dignity and honour.

There should be no place for illegal immigrants in Pakistan whether they are from Afghanistan, India, Bangladesh, Burma, Sri Lanka or any other country of the world.