Crackdown Escalates: Pakistan Moves to Detain Undocumented Afghanistan Migrants

DID Press: As the process of deporting Afghanistani migrants from neighboring countries continues, Pakistani security officials have issued a new order to arrest undocumented migrants in Rawalpindi.

Rawalpindi police chief issued an order to the Rawal, Potohar and Sadr security areas that all Afghanistan nationals without valid residence documents must be identified and arrested, reported DID news agency, quoting Dawn newspaper.
The order emphasizes that the arrested individuals will be transferred to a detention center affiliated with a government college.

According to the report, the order includes several categories of migrants; Afghanistan Identity Card (ACC) holders, those whose visas have expired, those who do not have any proof of residence in Pakistan, and even holders of temporary UN cards.

The Rawalpindi police chief has expressed dissatisfaction with the current performance of police stations in implementing this plan and has called for the use of “all possible means” to arrest undocumented migrants.

This measure is being taken at a time when the Pakistani Interior Ministry had previously announced the intensification of the plan to return migrants without legal documents.

According to official statistics, more than 216,000 Afghanistani migrants have been deported from Pakistan in the last two months alone.

On the other hand, at the same time as these developments in Pakistan, the process of deporting illegal Afghanistani migrants from Iran is also continuing with intensity; a measure that indicates the synchronism and perhaps coordination in regional policies towards Afghanistan nationals.

These measures are being taken at a time when Afghanistan continues to face humanitarian, economic and security crises, and the forced return of migrants to a country with fragile infrastructure has raised growing concerns about their human rights situation