EDITORIAL: That the interior ministry is suddenly very concerned about formally registering all alien citizens presently living in Pakistan is understandable considering that waves of refugees are expected to hit the country as Afghanistan’s internal security further breaks down. Islamabad is now gripped with the threat of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) fighters blending in with the refugees to cross back into Pakistan, with very obvious results. Prime Minister Imran Khan spoke of sealing the border in case the Taliban storm into Kabul and trigger yet another flood of miserable Afghans to the Pakistani border, which makes a lot of sense, but such measures are logistically and practically impossible to ensure across the entire length of the crossing. So, whether we like it or not, yet more fighting in Afghanistan is about to become the reason for yet more Afghans seeking sanctuary in Pakistan.
A lot of other factors also go into such decisions. General Musharraf also shut down at least the formal border crossings when the so-called war on terror first began in 2001. But he caved in as soon as the harsh winter began killing the starving men, women and children camped just outside Pakistan’s gates. And along with a lot of desperate and grateful people also came a lot of bad guys with their usual Kalashnikovs and drugs. Therefore, a much better and much more practical way of dealing with this issue is being prepared for it. All foreign citizens must be duly registered with the national database authority and kept within strictly defined limits. And that is where the state has left a little something to be desired.
The alien registration authority has existed for quite some while, after all, and this is not the first time that the interior ministry has tried to register and document all outsiders inside the country. Yet none of the efforts was properly followed through, which doesn’t speak very highly of a country with one of the highest refugee populations in the world. As a result, now that there’s a good chance of a lot more refugees coming our way we are running from pillar to post to round up the old ones. There’s also something to be said about the number of refugees that Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid seemed so worried about when he spoke to the press in the capital. Surely, he should be thinking about a lot more than the 40 or 50 thousand people that came to Pakistan in the 70s, whom he mentioned when he explained the alien registration initiative, because even by conservative estimates there are still millions of outsiders in the country. A lot of them have also illegally acquired national identity cards and own a lot of land and a large number of businesses here, which makes tracking them down even more difficult than usual.
The situation is made all the more sensitive because Pakistan has only recently emerged from its own mini war that killed more than 80,000 people and gutted billions of dollars of national savings. And the way the odd incident of terrorism has started to take place once again suggests that the enemy is regrouping and preparing to take advantage of the security vacuum in Afghanistan. There is no doubt that Pakistan’s security agencies will do whatever is needed to keep the country safe. Yet nobody should underplay the importance of registering and monitoring all aliens within Pakistan’s borders. They should be given a deadline beyond which voluntary registration will no longer be possible and the state will move towards forced deportations. The whole country should not have to pay the price for the interior ministry not doing a very important part of its job properly.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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