QUETTA: The Federal Government had categorically announced that the Pakistan CINCs and Passports obtained by the Afghans through questionable means are totally irrelevant and invalid. Those Pakistani documents unlawfully obtained by the Afghan refugees or the illegal immigrants are no substitute to the Pakistani citizenship.

Thus the Government had clarified the situation blocking or unblocking of CNICs of suspected foreign nationals has become irrelevant and all the Afghans, with or without Pakistani CNICs and other State documents will have to go back to his homeland or face criminal proceedings under the laws of the land.

There should be tough action against all those elders, officials and chosen representatives of the people who had willfully verified the bogus State documents for obtaining Pakistani CNICs and Pakistani Passport by the Afghan nationals. It amounts to cheating the State of Pakistan. Those elements should be punished so that sanctity of the Pakistani State documents is restored.

It is a clear message for the concerned Pakistanis considering the illegal immigrants as a serious burden on this country and they will have to go back with honour and dignity in all circumstances. There is no question of staying back in Pakistan without obtaining the Pakistani nationality through legal means.

The message is loud and clear that the honeymoon of illegal immigrants of Afghanistan in this country is over and they should make preparations to go back, preferably with honour and dignity retaining good neighbourly relations between the two countries.

The Prime Minister Secretariat had issued a directive to all concerned Departments of the Federal Government to ensure the orderly and smooth repatriation of all Afghans, particularly the illegal immigrants, from December 31. Pakistan Government had extended their stay for another year following pressure from the Pakhtun politicians and leaders regardless of the political divide and also from the UNHCR which Pakistan Government had reluctantly conceded.

The PM Secretariat had issued the directive to the Interior Ministry for taking appropriate measures for early and smooth repatriation of all Afghans, including the illegal immigrants and refugees as the final deadline is approaching.

The security establishment of Pakistan, more than once, had expressed it serious concern over the presence of millions of illegal immigrants on the Pakistani soil considering them a serious security risk. In order to alleviate some of the concern, local administration in KPK took action against the illegal immigrants and thousands of them were forced to leave Pakistan.

However, there was no such campaign from the Government departments and security forces against the illegal immigrants on the Baloch Mainland and the immigrants from Afghanistan remained undisturbed and unmoved sensing no threat that they are being repatriated. There is double standard to deal with Afghans in Balochistan and other parts of Pakistan and for unknown reasons.

However, there is a growing demand from the indigenous people that the illegal immigrants should be first to go back followed by legal refugees who were given shelter by the State of Pakistan for political or diplomatic reasons.

Observers said that the extension was applicable to the Afghan refugees only and that had not covered the illegal immigrants. Thus the Government should start immediate action against the illegal immigrants so that they should be sent back before the deadline of December 31. The Government is not morally bound to allow the illegal immigrants to stay back for more and more months and delay their repatriation.

Or the Government should round them up from all the major population centres in Quetta and its surroundings and confined all of them to barbed wire camps till they are deported.

The world countries, including the Pakistani officials, are praising Iran for properly handling the Afghan refugees. Iran merely confined all the Afghan refugees to their barbed wire camps and restricted their movement to that camps guarded by the Iranian security force. Any one committed a mischief, he tried, punished and deported in no time.

In case of Pakistan, the official think tanks of the security establishment and the Foreign Office, allowed all the Afghans, including refugees, to mix up with the local population to an extent that they posed a serious security threat to entire Pakistan, including the Federal Capital and other major cities.

Now they are considered as the biggest problem for the security establishment as the Afghans were found involved in suicide attacks, bomb attacks and other subversive activities undermining national security.

The Government had no other option but to minimize the threat posed by unknown and unidentified terrorists operating within the civilian population. All the illegal immigrants should be confined to barbed wire camps to desolate places and their movement should be restricted to the camps before they are sent back home.

Pakistan will definitely welcome all the Afghans who enter Pakistan possessing valid travel documents. Even those present in Pakistan should go back and return Pakistan with valid travel documents and stay and do business or other activities in a legal manner.

In any case, Pakistan should not be treated as a part of Afghanistan the Afghan national simply cross the borders with no travel documents. Pakistani people got the inalienable right to defend their sovereignty enforcing laws of the land to all and without any discrimination.