2,239 Afghans deported via Torkham

Another 2,239 Afghan citizens residing illegally in Pakistan were deported via the Torkham border on Thursday.

Khyber Deputy Commissioner Bilal Shahid Rao told The Express Tribune that the deportation process of Afghan nationals has been proceeding smoothly.

"The deported refugees were residing in different districts of Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Among those who came to the transit camp, 894 people were residing without documents while 636 people were ACC card holders," he said, adding that 709 Afghans were transferred directly to the Torkham border from different districts of Punjab and Azad Kashmir.

He asserted that 43,760 illegal Afghans have been deported since April 1. In March, Pakistan rejected a request by the Afghan Taliban to grant an extension in the stay of Afghan refugees.

Kabul was conveyed in clear terms that Islamabad will proceed with its plan to deport all illegal immigrants and Afghan Citizen Card (ACC) holders from April 1. In a major policy decision, Pakistan on March 7 announced that ACC holders had until March 31 to leave the country or face deportation.

There are around 800,000 ACC holders in Pakistan but after March 31 they were to be treated as illegal aliens. Reports were doing the rounds that Pakistan was planning to evict all Afghans from the country.