Kakar says since August 2021, at least 16 Afghans carried out suicide attacks inside Pakistan, while 65 terrorists killed in encounters with security forces identified as Afghans n PM visits Kuwait to condole demise of Amir Nawaf.

 

ISLAMABAD, KUWAIT CITY  -  Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar has said that as Pakistan stood at the crossroads of history, it could no lon­ger continue to compromise its national security by accommodating huge number of undocumented immigrants. 

“Our ultimate aim is to build a safer, more peaceful and prosperous Pakistan – with associated benefits for our own peo­ple, for the region, and the wider world,” the prime minister wrote in an article published in The Telegraph yesterday.

He said that the governments across the world were adapting to a new era of mass migration linked to conflict, climate change, and economic opportunism. 

He said the UK government’s plan to deport illegal immigrants to Rwanda was sign of that pressure. The heated debate surrounding the proposal and the many ef­forts to derail the scheme illus­trated the huge challenges for policymakers as they sought to balance human rights with hard realities. Similarly, he said, France was also struggling, while Italy had expressed fears that it might become “Europe’s refugee camp”. After opening its arms to several million refugees in recent years, Germany was also feeling the strain, prompt­ing the announcement of tough new deportation measures.

The situation in the Unit­ed States was no easier, he re­marked. “Pakistan’s problem is of a different magnitude al­together. Over the last three to four decades, between four and five million migrants (roughly the population of Ireland) have arrived. Many have no right to remain. Despite being a non-sig­natory to 1951 Convention on Refugees (and its 1967 Proto­col), we have generously ac­commodated the single largest caseload of refugees,” the prime minister wrote.

He said the hospitality was in Pakistan’s DNA and that was why the country had fulfilled its legal, moral and humanitar­ian obligations, and would con­tinue to do so. “We have worked very hard, over a very long pe­riod of time, to accommodate as many as we can while giving those with no right to remain ample opportunity to leave vol­untarily.” Unfortunately, Prime Minister Kakar said that despite frequent opportunities to repa­triate voluntarily, and multiple government attempts to regis­ter those who remained undoc­umented, a significant number had persistently refused to for­malise their status, choosing in­stead to stay in the shadows.

He said that while Pakistan had benefited from many hard­working and law-abiding mi­grants, the overall socio-eco­nomic and security cost of the huge influx had been stagger­ing. “Many work on the black market, paying no tax, depress­ing wages for legitimate work­ers. They are also susceptible to exploitation by the criminal un­derworld, with all its disturbing links to terrorist organisations operating in the region,” he re­marked He said that since Au­gust 2021, at least 16 Afghan nationals had carried out sui­cide attacks inside Pakistan, while 65 terrorists killed in en­counters with security forces, mainly in the bordering region, were identified as Afghans. 

“No responsible govern­ment can ignore such concerns. Whenever we raised this with the interim Afghan govern­ment, they advised us to “look inwards”. We have finally decid­ed to heed to their advice to put our house in order,” the prime minister commented. 

He said that Pakistan’s pains­taking repatriation programme had attracted predictable criti­cism from those who did not un­derstand the complex history of the problem – or the extraordi­nary efforts that had been made to avoid forcible deportations. 

He said in order to ensure the welfare of those being re­patriated, the government had strictly directed all the officials involved in the programme to treat deportees with due re­spect and care. 

“Furthermore, our emphasis is on voluntary, safe and dig­nified repatriation of individ­uals (along with their legally acquired assets), and not on de­portation. Some 93 per cent of those who have returned to Af­ghanistan have done so volun­tarily. Importantly, none of the 1.46 million Afghans who ap­plied for proof of registration cards have been returned; nor have 800,000 or so individuals who hold Afghan citizen cards.”

He said that some 79 transit centres had been set up, pro­viding free meals, shelter and medical facilities while addi­tional crossing points had been opened on the Pakistan-Afghan Border to facilitate the process­es. Moreover, the security per­sonnel were escorting the im­migrants to border crossings, taking particular care of women and children. Emergency help­lines were available to report any abuses, he added.

Prime Minister Kakar recalled that the abrupt withdrawal of Western allies from Afghani­stan in August 2021 prompt­ed a whole new influx of refu­gees to Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands of Afghan nation­als crossed the border, claiming their lives were in danger. 

“Again, we take their welfare very seriously, recognising that some do require special protec­tion. We will not deport at-risk groups, such as musicians, jour­nalists, and human rights activ­ists. We do however need help from other countries,” he said. 

He said only 59,033 of the new arrivals had been resettled outside Pakistan, while 42,068 awaited evacuation to the West. The rest had failed to put for­ward a convincing case to any­one for asylum, and continue to stay in Pakistan illegally, he maintained.

In a latest development, Care­taker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar visited Kuwait yesterday to offer condolences over the sad demise of the Amir His Highness Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.

During his meeting with the new Amir His Highness Sheikh Meshal al-Ahmad al-Sabah, the prime minister offered the sin­cerest and heartfelt condolenc­es on behalf of himself, the lead­ership, the Government and the people of Pakistan.