KHYBER
Hundreds of Kabul bound Afghan citizens including female and children have been stranded at Pak-Afghan sharing border, Torkham for the last one week.
More than forty Afghan families, willing to go to Afghanistan, approached the Torkham border from various cities of Pakistan, but the authorities concerned refused them to cross the border.
They have taken shelter in temporary self-made tents in front of pedestrians’ terminal.
The Afghanis were on the view that they willingly return to their motherland but the Pakistani security officials in Torkham for unknown reasons refused to let them cross to their country.
Sharfuddin,an Afghan citizen,residing in Green Town, Lahore said that unexpected raids of Punjab police on his house and demand for illicit money, compelled him to go to his country but ironically for the last three days he along with his family members have been sitting under an open sky in Torkham.
I showed my proper Afghan identity card (Tazkera) to the officials in Torkham but they did not allow me to cross the border to Afghanistan, he added and asked to grant them permission to go to Afghanistan.
Another Afghan national Safiullah, who came from Urmor, Peshawar to move to Afghanistan said that keeping in view unfavorable conditions for them to reside anymore in Pakistan, he decided to repatriate to his native town in Afghanistan.
Burst in tears he maintained that neither they were permitted to reside in Pakistan respectfully nor they were let to move to their homeland, Afghanistan.
Human traffickers at the border approached him, asking for sixty to seventy thousand rupees per person for crossing the border that was impossible for him to pay, he blamed.
All of his cash was spent in the temporary stay in Torkham and had no money even to pay his fare to reach his village, Kama, he lamented.
The stranded Afghan families urged the Pak officials to have mercy on them and let them move to their native country.
When the Assistant Director of Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in Torkham Yasir Arafat was contacted on the matter he said we are here to implement the laws of the Interior Ministry.We can’t allow anyone who does not have all the required travelling documents.
It is to be mentioned here that on the eve of recently passed Eid-ul Azha, the Pakistan government as a good gesture relaxed travelling restrictions at Torkham border for four days and permitted Afghan nationals to return to Afghanistan without proper documents.
