First, the enemy within

Though it fell to caretaker Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti’s lot to deliver it, the message clearly had the stamp of a higher level. And it seemed to have been designed like a time bomb, causing sporadic explosions.

It happened on Tuesday. The government issued an ultimatum to all undocumented immigrants, including Afghan nationals, to leave Pakistan by October 31 or risk imprisonment and deportation.

This decision to expel undocumented foreigners was taken at the meeting of the apex committee of the National Action Plan, chaired by caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar in Islamabad. Army Chief Gen Asim Munir attended the meeting, along with federal ministers and high officials.

The news was broken in a tweet by caretaker Information Minister Murtaza Solangi: “All illegal immigrants have 28 days to leave Pakistan”. However, it was Sarfraz Bugti who spoke to reporters and shared details of an operation that has the potential of creating major disruptions.

Immediately, many difficult questions arose in the minds of the people because of the complexity of the entire plan and its implications for Afghans living in Pakistan, refugees or not. The meeting decided to take strict action against businesses and properties owned by ‘illegal immigrants’ and scrutinize fake identity cards illegally issued to foreign nationals.

There is a lot more. The central issue, in any case, is that the plan mainly targets Afghans in the wake of rising incidents of terrorism in the country. In that sense, there is this larger perspective of Pakistan’s constantly changeable relations with Afghanistan and the Taliban. So, how can this historical burden be cast away in less than a month – and with what cost and consequences?

Take, for instance, the remarks of the interior minister that at least 1.7 million unregistered Afghans were currently living in Pakistan. He also claimed that out of 24 suicide attacks in Pakistan since January this year, 14 suicide bombers were Afghan nationals. Serious stuff, isn’t it?

As I said, there are questions and questions. I read this comment in a newspaper: “The Afghans cannot be wished away”. Naturally, the Afghan community across the country is highly disturbed. More than half of them reside in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including in the merged tribal districts bordering Afghanistan. As would be expected, the chief spokesman of the Afghan Taliban has termed Pakistan’s plan as “unacceptable”.

There are some hints of damage control. Caretaker Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani met his Afghan counterpart in Tibet on Thursday, where they are for a regional conference. They are supposed to have discussed “challenges to peace”. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Foreign Office has asserted that the crackdown on undocumented immigrants is not aimed at any ethnic group.

Be that as it may, I deem it important to look at this issue from the point of view of human rights. That is why I want to quote the immediate response of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP). This is what it said: “The government’s decision to evict over one million ‘illegal’ foreign residents within 30 days – allegedly because they have links to terrorist and criminal groups – reflects not only an absence of compassion but also a myopic and narrow view of national security.

“The large majority of such people are vulnerable Afghan refugees and stateless persons for whom Pakistan has been home for several generations. It is unacceptable to hold them to account for the wrongs of a selected few. They have a moral right to seek refuge in this country and to be treated with dignity and empathy. This decision also contravenes international human rights law and must be reversed immediately….”

Now, it is certainly remarkable that the rulers have decided to take this big step and have put an extensive plan into operation. But do they have the capacity to pull it off? If the answer is in the affirmative then why have they allowed the demons of violent religious extremism to prosper in Pakistan for all these years?

And if they suddenly have the will to do it, they must first deal with the sources of religious extremism, bigotry and militancy that are destroying our social order. Since the beginning of this deviance during the long night of Zia’s martial law, it is the enemy within that our rulers have not been able to identify and defeat. The Taliban were facilitated by this environment and should also fall in the wider net that is cast to catch all militants and violent extremists.

Actually, there is no evidence yet that the ruling ideas that have presided over a systematic depredation of Pakistan’s liberal and tolerant society are changing and a genuine struggle for peace and social justice has begun. The present leadership should find some time to look at Pakistan’s society.

To take just one example of a recent calamity, they need to patiently sit through a presentation of what happened in Jaranwala in Punjab in the middle of August. If violent mobs can ransack and torch more than two dozen churches and residences of the Christian community without being checked on the spot, then where is the state and its functionaries? The truth is that Pakistan’s social fabric is in tatters.

This week’s initiative to rid Pakistan of illegal immigrants, howsoever flawed, may still yield some positive results if the rulers are sincerely willing to repent for their lapses in the wake of such unbearable tragedies as the massacre of our schoolchildren in Peshawar’s Army Public School by the Taliban terrorists on December 16, 2014.

Yes, the entire nation was shaken to its core. A National Action Plan was readily endorsed by parliament. What happened to it? One of its 20 points was: zero tolerance for militancy in Punjab. Another prescribed strict action against the promotion of hatred, extremism, sectarianism and intolerance. But these wise commands have apparently been kept from both: the rulers who govern and the mobs that roam the streets.

The writer is a senior journalist. He can be reached at: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail. com