Author: B. Muralidhar Reddy
Publication: The Hindu
Date: May 13, 2002
Alarmed over recent incidents of
terrorism, the Pakistan Government has decided to launch a crackdown on
illegal immigrants.
The measure is likely to mainly
affect thousands of Afghanis. While the estimates of Afghanis in Pakistan
before the Taliban regime was ousted varied between 2.5 and 3 million,
no estimate of the number of Afghanis without "valid documents" is available.
In recent weeks the Musharraf Government
has been under pressure from the United States to look for cadres of Al-Qaeda
and Taliban that could have strayed into its territory from Afghanistan.
The presence of a huge Afghan population
in virtually every province of the country makes it easy for the erstwhile
cadres of Taliban, particularly Afghans, to find safe hideouts. The U.S.-led
coalition believes that the tribal areas in Pakistan are particularly vulnerable
to infiltration from Afghanistan, given the affinity of the people on both
sides of the border.
The Federally Administered Tribal
Areas (FATA) are on paper under the jurisdiction of the military government
but for practical purposes they enjoy a great deal of autonomy.
Attempts by Islamabad in the past
to regulate the affairs in the region have met with stiff resistance.
There are reports of protests and
widespread anger in the tribal areas over the possibility of joint operations
by the Pakistani and U.S.-led coalition forces in search of Al-Qaeda and
Taliban cadres. It is indeed a tight rope-walk for the Musharraf Government
given the pressure from Washington and the resistance from the tribal leaders.
The decision to crackdown on illegal
immigrants appears to have been taken after the high-level meeting on Saturday
to review the law and order situation in the wake of the Karachi bombing.
Media reports said that all the
provincial governments have been directed to look for illegal migrants.
The police have been given a two-week deadline to arrest them.
The reports said that after the
May 30 deadline, if any illegal immigrant was found in the country, the
Station House Officers of the concerned area would face dismissal from
service, while the Senior Superintendents of Police would also be served
with "displeasure notice''.
The SHOs had been directed to submit
a detailed report to the SSPs, within two-weeks time, about all those foreigners
who had a legal status as well as those had been living illegally.
It is a tall order for the law enforcing
agencies to deliver in a fortnight and observers wonder if it is a feasible
directive.
The nature of the problem could
be gauged from the number of Afghans- over 80,000- living here in the national
capital itself.
The English daily, Dawn, has said
that according to a report compiled by the Special Branch of Islamabad
police, 48 gangs of Afghan nationals had been operating in Islamabad.
They were involved in cases ranging
from shoplifting to house robberies. As per the report 11,145 members of
725 Afghan families had been living in the federal capital without legal
documents.
