After decades, there has been growing realisation in the power corridors, especially the parliament, of multiple problems and threats associated with the continued presence of millions of Afghan refugees on Pakistani soil but there has been little practical action on part of authorities to address the issue.

On September 21, the Public Accounts Committee directed the government to deport unregistered Afghan refugees, while shifting registered nationals to refugee camps. The committee, which met under the chairmanship of Noor Alam Khan, also directed the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON) to raise the issue of Afghan refugees at the United Nation. Noor Alam observed that Afghan refugees had been living in Pakistan for years and doing business but they did not pay taxes. Further, he took exception to reports that Afghans were found defaming Pakistan in the world. Moreover, the committee directed the Interior Secretary and SAFRAN Secretary to trace 1.4 million Afghan refugees in a month and then report to the committee.

The three directions from the parliamentary committee are indeed very sound and must be complied with immediately. Unregistered Afghan refugees are in millions and many of them have even received Pakistan national documents, like Computerized National Identity Cards (CNICs) and passports, while they have also purchased properties in Pakistan. However, the issue is whether law enforcement agencies of Pakistan have the capacity and will to trace all registered and unregistered Afghan refugees and deal with them according to the law. The answer is that neither Pakistani LEAs have the will nor the capacity to locate all Afghan refugees and deal with them lawfully. There may be capacity of Pakistani LEAs to a certain extent to deal with the Afghan refugee problem in the country but there has always been a lack of a political and administrative will to tackle the issue. The reason is that Pakistan had been seeking strategic depth in Afghanistan for decades and for that matter it was appeasing Afghans. However, the policy backfired and instead of getting strategic depth in Afghanistan, the latter became a strategic quagmire for Pakistan. Consequently, Pakistan officially renounced the policy of strategic depth in the last PML-N government from 2013-2018, when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s adviser on Foreign Affairs, Sartaj Aziz, came on record to say that it was no longer a policy. Afterwards, Pakistani security forces, with huge losses and financial cost, placed barbed wire along most of the 2,640-kilometer-long border with Afghanistan. Obviously, Pakistan set up the barbed wire to protect itself from the outpouring of interminable conflict and crisis in Afghanistan. However, with such a large number of Afghan living in Pakistan, would the fence be of any great consequence? The answer is no. Therefore, the LEAs have to realise the grave security threat which millions of foreigners pose in the shape of Afghan refugees living on Pakistani soil and many of them have been involved in anti-Pakistan activities.

Last year, two important developments about Afghan refugees took place which could have great bearing on national security if pursued and implemented in letter and spirit. The two related developments included the moving of court by a notable of the Mohmand tribal district for the cancellation of thousands of Pakistani CNICs and domicile certificates, obtained fraudulently by citizens of Afghanistan residing in the district. The second development was an announcement by the then Federal Interior Minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, of blocking around 200,000 CNICs obtained through fraud by Afghan nationals living in Pakistan.

The two incidents seemed to be closely related as the government’s move to block the CNICs of 200,000 Afghan citizens had come just days after the filing of a petition by a notable of Mohmand. A large number of Afghan nationals living in Pakistan have obtained Pakistani nationality documents including CNICs and domiciles and many have been involved in crime and a range of illegal activities. These crimes and activities include gun-running, drug smuggling, kidnapping for ransom, the provision of mercenary services for local animosities between and among tribes and families, prostitution and others. However, the most dangerous activity in which a large number of Afghans have been involved over decades is terrorism. In most terrorist activities which have taken place in the last four decades in Pakistan, including the ruthless bombings of 1970s and 1980s in different cities of Pakistan, particularly Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan and afterwards, to the peak of terrorism in Pakistan from 2007 to 2016, Afghan nationals or Afghan support to Pakistani terrorists were involved. After the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in December 1979, millions of Afghan citizens descended upon Pakistan as refugees. At one point in time in the 1980s and 1990s, the number of Afghan refugees had reached four million. At that time, it was the highest number of refugees hosted by a single country in the world and is a sort of record of its kind. Bad policies of Pakistani decision-makers, particularly strategists enamored by the concept of finding “strategic depth” in liberated Afghanistan and General Zia’s vision of creating a Muslim emirate in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region, gave complete freedom to Afghan refugees to do whatever they liked and live in cities and villages instead of camps. This has been one of the gravest mistakes Pakistan policymakers committed in the history of the country. The millions of Afghan nationals bereft of historical love or respect for Pakistan and its people, on one hand, and successive Afghan governments always having irredentist claims on Pakistani Pakhtun and Baloch territories, on the other, wreaked havoc on Pakistani society.

Thus, Afghan refugees living in Pakistan have become a grave strategic security threat. Although there has been some realization among Pakistani decision-makers or pockets of strategists, nothing concrete could be done to repatriate the Afghans to their homeland.

However, it is important to note that the number of Afghans having obtained Pakistani national documents is far bigger than 200,000, which may be the tip of the iceberg. This needs to be properly investigated and in this regard help of local communities and elders should be sought as they can rightly identify locals and denizens. In this regard, the National Assembly should put pressure on the LEAs to effectively deal with the Afghan refugees problem.