KARACHI:
Complaining of growing crime, unrest and unemployment in Sindh, particularly in Karachi, Sindh Agriculture Minister Muhammad Ismail Rahoo demanded on Thursday the repatriation of Afghan refugees.
Sindh is already facing difficulties and the Centre should not further extend the refugees' stay, he said, maintaining that if the stay was to be elongated, the refugees should be accommodated in Islamabad or Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
"Sindh is not an orphanage where every foreigner is to be given shelter," he stated, pointing out that around 2.5 million refugees, including Burmese, Biharis, Afghans, Bengalis and Africans, resided in Karachi alone and most among them were unregistered.
"How many of them has the [federal] government registered so far?" he questioned, accusing the National Database Regulatory Authority (NADRA) of minting money on the issue. Then, answering his own question, the minister said the federal government had registered just 1.5 million citizens over the past 15 years.
Lambasting NADRA for its poor performance on the matter, he claimed any foreigner could get Pakistani citizenship by paying bribes to federal government officials.
"On the other hand, the interior minister is completely unaware [about the issue]," he remarked, calling for the proper implementation of laws pertaining to alien residents.
According to Rahoo, the presence of refugees has led to a sharp increase in crime, unrest and unemployment in Karachi and for this reason, they should be repatriated.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 3rd, 2020.
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