The deportation of 7 Pakistani nationals to Afghanistan was stopped when the authorities that were part of it in processing the illegal immigrants confirmed their identities on Sunday night.
The authorities concerned with this have stated that, the individuals were detained in Punjab after they failed to confirm their identity. They added that the seven people could not speak Urdu or Punjabi and faced issues while communicating with the authorities to tell them that they were Pakistani nationals.
One of the officials said that, “They were detained under Section 14 of the Foreigners Act, 1946. However, since the data was available with the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra), they were identified and sent back to Punjab.”
The official also said that two cases were reported in the past where ‘jail inmates’ had attempted to escape and gave false details to the authorities. He said that both the prisoners of Pakistan were identified as citizens of Pakistan and were sent back to jail in Punjab.
He further added that, “They tried to escape, they had planned to enter Pakistan again through the Ghulam Khan border crossing.” Adding further on this, he said that, “The case of 7 individuals was totally different as they were not prisoners but failed to prove their identities. They were later taken into custody and directly brought to the border cross for repatriation to Afghanistan.”
He said that Nadra had the information of the Pakistani nationals. He added that, during the repatriation of the illegal immigrants, they also maintained the information of every adult Afghan male in the database for the future use.”
As per the official stats, overall 594 people, arrested under the Foreigners Act, were brought from Punjab for their repatriation to Afghanistan. Whereas, only 565 could be deported and the remaining 29, who turned out to be Pakistanis, were sent back to Punjab.
Officials stated that data of every single individual being repatriated to Afghanistan was part of Nadra record. He said that earlier, data of every single Afghan illegal immigrant was being maintained but later the government exempted women and children below the age of 14 from it.
