Residents demand confinement of Afghan refugees to camps

HARIPUR: Accusing the Afghan refugees of involvement in criminal activities and anti-Pakistan sentiments, the residents of different localities of Khalabat Township and Panian on Wednesday demanded the authorities to confine all of them to their camps.

The residents, led by Public Forum’s Coordinator Dr Farhan Abbasi, Amir Afzal Khan, Syed Asim Shah, Dr Jehnagir Abbasi and Abdul Waheed Abbasi, staged a peaceful protest outside the office of Deputy Superintendent Police (City) Sadaqat Nisar Khan, and filed a complaint.

They also chanted slogans like “go Afghani go Afghani” and through a complaint stated that the so-called refugees in the limits of Khalabat Township and Panian police stations were allegedly involved in waylaying, robberies and other criminal activities besides bullying the locals.

Ahsan Ilyas, one of the affected persons from Khalabat Township, told the DSP City that he was busy in agriculture activity in his wheat fields near Afghan camp No 20 when some Afghan national attacked and thrashed him and his relatives and later got a bogus FIR registered against them.

The attackers, according to the complainant, used abusive language against Pakistan while attacking them. The protesters said that the Afghans living in camps and surrounding areas have ceased to enjoy the status of refugees, and should be sent back to their areas of origin by restricting them to the camps before that. They said that due to bullying and criminal activities of the Afghans, the locals were undergoing a state of mental stress and insecurity.The protesters demanded cancellation of a bogus FIR against them by the Afghan refugees.