Pakistan initiates second phase of crackdown against illegal foreigners

QUETTA: Balochistan Caretaker Information Minister Jan Achakzai on Wednesday said that the government has initiated second phase of a crackdown against illegal foreigners across Pakistan, ARY News reported.

Speaking to journalists in Quetta, the caretaker provincial minister said all government agencies are involved in the crackdown on the illegal foreigners. “Those under any delusion that they will dodge crackdown live in fool’s paradise,” he added.

Jan Achakzai noted that the repatriation of unregistered Afghan nationals was continuing via Chaman border but the “process slowed down in the last few days”.

He further said that the authorities were in contact with Sindh and Punjab counterparts to speed up this process. He also rebuffed reports border closure at Chaman, adding that in recent days, 2,000 illegal foreigners have been detained

Nearly 375,000 Afghans have left Pakistan since the November 1 deadline that Pakistan set for the voluntary return of all undocumented foreigners to their country of origin, a United Nations spokesperson said a day earlier.

He said that the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a Geneva-based UN agency, together with humanitarian partners, was delivering a range of critical aid at the border crossing points between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Citing IOM, the spokesperson said that the number of border crossings had increased from 200 daily to 17,000 since Pakistan’s “Illegal Foreigners’ Repatriation Plan” went into effect.

The interim government had announced in October that all illegal immigrants should leave Pakistan by the 1st of November or face forceful expulsion.

Thousands of Afghans are returning to their homeland on a daily basis through Chaman and Torkham borders.