Federal Minister for States and Frontier Regions (Safron) Najmuddin Khan has said that a total of 1.7 million Afghan refugees are registered and all of these refugees would return to Afghanistan till 2012. While replying to a supplementary question during the question/answer session of the Senate, he said there are 1.7 million registered and more than one million unregistered Afghan refugees residing in Pakistan.
The minister said a tripartite commission, set up under the tripartite agreement between Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as UNHCR, is working on reintegration of Afghan refugees. Later, Interior Minister A. Rehman Malik told Senate that National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) has cancelled as many as 90,000 fake national identity cards of Afghan nationals, saying the government is maintaining record of illegal foreigners.
He said that government has decided not to give extension to these people to stay in Pakistan. He said that 153 official of Nadra were also arrested and charged in this regard. He said the government has decided to conduct a countrywide survey to determine the total number and location of foreigners in the country, adding that after a specific date, to be finalised after completion of the survey, these people would not be allowed to stay in Pakistan.
He said that Afghan refugees residing in different parts of the country especially in Khyber-Pakhtunkhawa are involved in acts of terrorism and crimes. "I have taken up the issue with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and asked him to take measures for the return and reintegration of Afghan refugees and strengthen vote bank but he didn't reply positively," he said.