Azad Kashmir govt is set to expel some 11,000 illegal Afghan refugees under a national anti-terror plan announced in the wake of the country's worst ever militant attack, police said Thursday. There are an estimated three million Afghan refugees living in Pakistan, either officially or unofficially, most of whom left their country to escape conflict in the 1980s and 1990s.
But they are viewed with deep suspicion inside country and routinely accused by authorities of harbouring militants. "Under the National Action Plan against terrorism, some 11,000 Afghans would be expelled from Azad (independent) Kashmir," senior police official Faheem Abbasi told a press conference in Muzaffarabad.
The plan, which involved the outlawing of militant groups, registration of seminaries and crackdown on hate speech, was announced in the wake of a Taliban massacre that killed 154 people, mostly school children, in December.
Abbasi said the home department was also set to outlaw 64 militant outfits in Kashmir that are also banned in the rest of country, and create a new anti-terror force comprising 500 personnel.
Comments
Comments are closed.