RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal
RFE/RL’s Radio Azad
November 4, 2023

Pakistan opened more border centers on November 3 to hasten the return of tens of thousands of undocumented Afghans, two days after the deadline to leave or face expulsion expired.

But as Pakistan accelerates the forced deportations, many Afghans with valid visas and documents issued by Islamabad to legally remain in the country have complained of being arbitrarily detained, pressured for bribes, or harassed to leave the country.

Some of them were deported or were among the more than 200,000 Afghans who left the country since October 3, when Islamabad announced that undocumented foreigners would have to leave voluntarily by November 1 or face arrests and forced deportations.

“When we show our cards to the police, they say these are not valid and we must leave immediately,” said Shah Wali, an Afghan refugee in the southern Pakistani seaport city of Karachi.

Wali holds a Proof of Registration (PoR) card, which makes his stay in Pakistan legal.

But the young man said he had not worked for months because of police harassment and has paid more than $30 in bribes to the police twice to avoid detention.

Zabiullah, another young Afghan man in Karachi, said he has paid some $300 to police in bribes after they detained him three times.

“I have the PoR card, but they didn’t pay any attention to it and were only interested in robbing and harassing us,” he told RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal.

According to the United Nations, some 1.4 million Afghan refugees have PoR cards. Over 880,000 more have valid visas.

Pakistan’s interior minister, Sarfaraz Bugti, said on October 3 that some 1.73 million Afghans in Pakistan had no legal documents to stay.

On October 31, Pakistani caretaker Prime Minister Anwar ul-Haq Kakar said Afghans with valid documents to remain in Pakistan will not be expelled.

“We are not expelling one person among those Afghans,” he told journalists.

But Taliban Prime Minister Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund accused Islamabad of extensive abuses.

“Why are you demolishing their properties, ruining their business, snatching their money, motorcycles and cars?” he asked in a televised speech on November 3. “It is 100 percent against all principles. Come and talk face to face.”

Meanwhile, more reports of the abuse of Afghans in Pakistan are emerging.

A video obtained by Radio Azadi on November 2 shows about a dozen Afghan men detained at a police station in Islamabad. Some of them showed their documents to prove that they were in the country legally. But they were still rounded up and imprisoned.

Abdul Majeed, a relative of two detained Afghan boys, spoke while holding the identity cards of their father outside a police station in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta.

“The policemen are acting arbitrarily. It is their will that whoever comes in their sight will be caught.,” he said.

Some Pakistani politicians, activists, and human rights campaigners accuse Islamabad of abusing the Afghans to coerce them to leave.

On November 3, a citywide shutdown was observed in Quetta.

Predominantly secular Pashtun political groups — the Awami National Party, the National Democratic Movement, the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement, and the Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party — called for the strike to protest the forced expulsions of Afghans.

With reporting by Reuters and the AFP and contributions from Abubakar Siddique

Copyright (c) 2023. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

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