Pakistan has mandated that all unapproved Afghan asylum seekers—roughly 1.7 million people—leave the country by the end of November.
Tensions have increased this year as a result of an increase in border strikes that Islamabad attributes to operators operating out of Afghanistan.
Islamabad, which on Tuesday vowed a crackdown on “illegal” migrants, has also grown resentful as a result of it.
Pakistan was encouraged by the Taliban administration to reconsider its “unacceptable” action.
The government of Afghanistan has consistently denied sheltering militants who attack Pakistan.
At least 50 people were murdered last week when a mosque blast in Mastung city, close to the Afghan border, occurred during a religious festival.
When he issued the crackdown order on “illegal” Afghans on Tuesday, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti did not appear to make a clear reference to that incident or another in the region of Balochistan.
International law upholds the freedom to look for shelter in another nation. Since the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan in 2021, Pakistan has taken in hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees amid decades of conflict.
According to the UN, 1.3 million Afghans are listed as refugees, while another 880,000 have been granted legal permission to stay.
However, Mr. Bugti asserted on Tuesday that an additional 1.7 million people are present in the nation “illegally”—a clear allusion to those who have not yet been granted refugee status.
By the end of the month, he added, those individuals would have to leave the nation, either voluntarily or through forcible deportation.
According to state media sources, he threatened to use all law enforcement agencies in the provinces or the federal government to deport them if they refused to leave. He did not elaborate on the specifics of how such an operation would be carried out.
He also announced the formation of a task team to find and seize the private enterprises and assets of Afghans living in the nation “illegally.”
However, according to Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban government in Kabul, Afghan refugees “are not involved in Pakistan’s security concerns.
Mujahid stated on X, formerly Twitter, “That country should tolerate them as long as they depart Pakistan voluntarily.”
Those with and without legal authorization to remain in Afghanistan are being rounded up, according to Afghan officials in Pakistan.
More than 1,000 Afghans had been held in the previous two weeks, the embassy claimed in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The Balochistan province, which is close to Pakistan’s border, has regularly been attacked by armed combatants, notably the Islamic State militant group and Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban.
Earlier last month, an explosion in the same neighborhood injured at least 11 people, among them a well-known Muslim leader.
Islamabad finally wanted all Afghans in the country to leave, including those with legal status and Pakistan residence cards, according to local state broadcaster APP. For its report, it used official sources.
More than half of the 24 suicide attacks near Pakistan’s border since January, according to Mr. Bugti, have been carried out by militants operating out of Afghanistan.
Beginning on November 1, he announced stricter entry requirements for Afghans, declaring that only travelers with valid passports and visas would be permitted entry.
Afghans have a tradition of using their national identity cards as a form of identification when entering Pakistan through land borders. There is a huge backlog of Afghans seeking entry documents to Pakistan, and the procedure of getting visas and passports has grown to take months.
