Separate teams of the capital police and local administration have been constituted to identify and locate properties owned by Afghan nationals, compile records and ascertain their value.
However, when Deputy Commissioner Irfan Nawaz Memon was contacted, he denied that any team had been established for the purpose.
“No such teams had been formed by the local administration,” Mr Memon said.
According to sources in the police and local administration, the teams had been tasked with identifying and locating properties and businesses owned by Afghans whether they had a legal refugee status or were ‘illegal’ immigrants.
The teams would make use of revenue record and also physically inspect properties and businesses, the sources said, adding that documents submitted to purchase them would also be scrutinised.
On Another officer said e-tagging of foreigners living in the capital legally and with proper traveling documents had been completed and a database was compiled by a unit of the Counter-Terrorism Department.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of States and Frontier Region’s Commissionerate for Afghan Refugees, in a letter to the interior minister, home secretaries, inspectors general of police in Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, chief commissioner Islamabad and deputy director State Bank of Pakistan, banking policy and regulations department, stated that Afghan refugees with valid proof of registration cards and Afghan citizen cards could temporarily reside in Pakistan and only be repatriated on voluntary basis. It further said instructions had already been passed to all stakeholders concerned, including the provincial governments.
The letter went on to say that harassing, arresting and detaining registered Afghan refugees would adversely affect Pakistan’s image and goodwill earned over the last 43 years.
Therefore, it was requested to kindly issue instructions to all relevant departments and agencies to ensure that no harassment or undue adverse action was taken against registered Afghan refugees holding proof of registration cards and holders of Afghan citizen cards issued by Nadra till a decision of the federal cabinet, it added.
