BY:AMAN ALI SHINWARI
PESHAWAR: The deportation process of Afghan refugees holding citizenship cards and undocumented immigrants continued through the Torkham border on Sunday, with 1,698 Afghan Citizen Card (ACC) holders and 3,268 illegal aliens repatriated in a single day, according to a statement by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Home and Tribal Affairs Department.
Official details reveal that in the first week of April 2025, a total of 3,053 Afghan citizens holding ACCs returned to their home country via Torkham. Since September 2023, the statement added, 484,975 illegal immigrants have been deported through the same border crossing.
Also read: Pakistan deports 1355 undocumented Afghans from Torkham Border in first week of April
In the latest crackdown following the expiration of the March 31, 2025, deadline, 160 ACC holders from Islamabad, 1,980 from Punjab, and one from Gilgit-Baltistan were sent back to Afghanistan. Additionally, among undocumented Afghans, 11,134 were from KP, 1,573 from Islamabad, 3,905 from Punjab, 38 from Azad Kashmir, one from Gilgit-Baltistan, and 44 from Sindh.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other UN agencies in Pakistan had earlier urged Afghan refugees to leave voluntarily before the deadline to avoid legal complications.
Meanwhile, the federal and provincial governments remain divided over the deportation policy. KP Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur has repeatedly opposed the forced expulsion of Afghan nationals, proposing instead to accommodate them in the province and grant them citizenship rights. However, due to the absence of a national policy on citizenship, the provincial government cannot take unilateral action without federal approval or amendments to existing laws.
