‘Action against illegal immigrants in Karachi soon’

KARACHI: The law-enforcing agencies including the Sindh Police and the Federal Investigation Agency will soon start action against illegal immigrants on the directions of the interior ministry.

Officials say that recently a meeting was held in the federal capital between the Interior Ministry of Pakistan and the law-enforcing agencies including the armed forces where the decision was taken to take strict action against illegally-residing foreigners and Afghans. The meeting decided that the deadline for the return of illegal foreigners will not be extended.

All Afghan citizens residing in Pakistan have been given clear instructions to return with honour. This decision has been taken after the direct involvement of Afghan citizens in increasing incidents of terrorism in Pakistan.

According to sources, all illegal foreigners will be obliged to return to their country by selling their assets by the deadline and that Afghan nationals will be able to travel to Pakistan only on the digitized “e-Tazkira”. The Sindh government has set up implementation committees at provincial, division and district levels to ensure the return of illegal immigrants.

Officials said the federal and provincial law-enforcement agencies would take all possible steps to ensure the arrest and forced deportation of all illegal foreigners and the movement through the Pakistan-Afghanistan border would be on computerized identity card (e-Tazkira) and visas. All other documents will be ineffective and illegal for cross-border travel. Many illegal immigrants are hiding on Karachi’s outskirts.

A letter written earlier by police authorities reads: “It is submitted that there are so many illegal Afghan nationals arriving on a daily basis in Karachi and living illegally in Sohrab Goth and surrounding areas, they are involved in illegal activities like street crime, peddling and land grabbing. In the past, illegal Afghans were deported to their country and now there is an acute need to take such steps in the public interest. Therefore, it is requested that the matter be taken up with higher authorities for deporting all illegally-residing Afghan nationals to their country to restrain their illegal activities in public and government interest.”