Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch has said that Pakistan is not engaged in peace talks with the proscribed group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), emphasising that neither does it plan to hold such talks in future.
She remarked in a press briefing, “I will reiterate what we have said in the past. Pakistan is not holding any talks with the terrorist organisation, the TTP. We have no plans to hold these talks with TTP.”
Recently, a video gained traction on social media showing the Afghan deputy interior minister advising Pakistan to resolve issues with TTP through talks because Pakistani military could not win this war. He also underscored that TTP does not enjoy public support at all that is why they should mediate with Pakistani authorities too.
When asked about the Afghan minister’s comments, Baloch replied, “Islamabad expects the Afghan authorities to take action against these terror groups and their leadership for the crimes they are committing and terrorist attacks for which they are responsible in Pakistan.”
The strong statement came after a terror attack in Shangla targeted Chinese nationals. CTD’s investigation hints that the attack was planned in Afghanistan.
Federal Minister for Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said that the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is unlike any other border in the world – terming Afghanistan a ‘source of terrorism’ for Pakistan.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, he said, “In view of the increase in terrorist incidents, there is a need for a fundamental change in the border situation. The source of terrorism in Pakistan is in Afghanistan and despite our efforts, Kabul is not making any progress in this direction.”
He also stated that Afghan authorities were aware of all the terrorist hideouts of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) operating against Pakistan inside their territory but cooperation from Afghans on this has been negligible.
The Minister’s comments came in the aftermath of the unfortunate terrorist attack that claimed the lives of six people including five Chinese engineers in Shangla. More importantly, over the past few days a string of terrorist attacks took place including Gawadar Port Authority Complex, PNS Siddiqi naval airbase in Turbat.
The government of Pakistan has started preparing the second phase of a controversial repatriation drive, sending Afghans back to their homeland. District and police authorities have been tasked to map and collect all the relevant data of their locations across the country.
Dawn has reported that authorities have been advised to expedite the mapping of Afghan Citizen Card (ACC) holders. “We have already started the mapping process,” said Abid Majeed, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s additional chief secretary. “It will pick up pace after Ramazan and we hope to complete the survey before April 30,” he said.
As of yet no date has been formally announced, however, an official told Dawn that it could begin in early to mid-summer, following approval from the federal government.
Amnesty International has called on Pakistan to immediately stop and reverse its decision of sending back Afghan people back to their country.
Pakistan began the repatriation process of “undocumented aliens” in November last year. The repatriation of Afghan refugees, which was part of the National Action Plan, has also now found its way into Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s 100-day working plan.
Two people were due to be publicly executed in a football stadium in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, provincial officials said, in the third and fourth death penalties carried out since the Taliban returned to power.
The Ghazni province information and culture department said in a public notice that the execution was a qisas punishment — equating to “an eye-for-an-eye” — but did not initially provide details on the prisoners or their crimes.
Although public executions were common during the Taliban’s first rule from 1996 to 2001, they have only carried out two others since surging back to power in August 2021. Both were for the crime of murder.
There have been regular public floggings for other crimes, however, including theft, adultery and alcohol consumption.
Taliban Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada last year ordered judges to fully implement all aspects of sharia — including qisas punishment.
The last execution was carried out in June 2023, when a convicted murderer was shot dead in the grounds of a mosque in Laghman province in front of some 2,000 people.
The repatriation of Afghans living across Pakistan continues.
According to official data, from February 15 to February 19, another 3,396 Afghans left Pakistan, including 1,245 men, 1,025 women, and 1,914 children. 210 families have reportedly been repatriated in 124 vehicles to Afghanistan.
A large number of illegal Afghans have been returning to Afghanistan from Pakistan fearing arrest, even before the announcement by the government of Pakistan.
According to official data released on February 19, a total of more than 493,000 Afghans have returned to their country as of yet.
Former Member National Assembly and Pashtun Tahafuz Movement leader Mohsin Dawar has shared via a tweet on X that “Taliban have taken over polling stations in Tappi, N. Waziristan in my constituency NA-40”.
Taliban have taken over polling stations in Tappi, N. Waziristan in my constituency NA-40. Three of our female polling agents escaped a blast in the morning. I had conveyed my concerns about the security situation in Tappi to the DRO which were ignored. ECP has to take notice. pic.twitter.com/4chQUNivB6
He went on to share that “three of our female polling agents escaped a blast in the morning. I had conveyed my concerns about the security situation in Tappi to the DRO which were ignored. ECP has to take notice.”
NA-40 same constituency where women are being barred from voting. Journalist Iftikhar Firdous also posted that an unidentified man has been recorded, taking away an entire ballot box. Voting as resumed but women are not being allowed to vote.
Women being barred to vote from NA-40 Miranshah, North Waziristan, an unidentified man picks away an entire ballot box. After the government has stepped in the voting has begun again but women are not being allowed to vote. pic.twitter.com/IclAdQdtju
The News has uncovered, through Ministry of Interior sources, that the name of Afghanistan’s Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani is among the list of thousands of Afghan citizens who had Pakistani passports until recently.
Sirajuddin Haqqani was issued a Pakistani passport for five years, which he used to visit many countries; including Qatar where he negotiated with the American government, which led to the Doha Agreement and the withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan.
Two officials who issued passports to Haqqani have been arrested, one of whom had retired from service when the proceedings against him began.
An official acquainted with the record-cleansing operation said 30,000 to 40,000 passports issued to Afghan nationals have been blocked.
Passport offices in various cities issued passports to Afghan citizens, including Karachi and Thatta in Sindh. Without naming the cities of Balochistan and KP, the official said that passport offices established in different cities have also been found involved in the matter.
Geo reports that Haqqani’s case was unveiled when a Peshawar-based journalist was on the same flight that Haqqani took to Doha. At the immigration counter, Haqqani had shown a Pakistani passport as his travel document. The aforementioned journalist was surprised to see him with that passport. But it was in August this year when the journalist drew the attention of the passport authorities in Pakistan about what he witnessed during a discussion. The information proved to be correct.
An inquiry was then conducted into the matter which revealed that the passport was issued from Peshawar during the PTI regime.
The passport-issuing officer said he was contacted by a man who identified himself as a senior military official from an intelligence agency and asked to issue a travel document for Haqqani.
When the passport officer was asked to find out the identity of the army officer, he said that he was not sure who the man actually was as he had given instructions over the phone. After that, departmental action was initiated against the passport officer and also against the employee who had printed the passport.
Reportedly both the persons are in jail. This is also confirmed by the information received from Saudi authorities.
Initially, the Saudi authorities raised the issue with the government of Pakistan that Afghan citizens have obtained Pakistani passports to get jobs in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government provided copies of passports, and as the government took notice of the case, it was found that the number of such cases is, in fact, more than 12,000. The passports of these individuals were revoked and those found to have used forged documents were deported to Afghanistan.
Nobel Prize winner and activist Malala Yousafzai was a guest on GEO’s ‘Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Saath’ where she spoke at length about why she stressed on the need to address the gender apartheid in Afghanistan, adding that a ceasefire in Gaza should be demanded by everyone.
Speaking to host Shahzeb Khanzada, Malala said she has consistently called for a ceasefire since the last month because targeting innocent people cannot be justified.
“There is no explanation for attacking innocent people. So many children have been killed and families have become homeless because of the attack,” stressed the girls education activist. “I’m worried that there isn’t a lot of pressure right now to stop the war.”
Malala urged audiences to pressurise their leaders to call for the UN to insert global pressure on Israel to stop the genocide.
On Tuesday, Malala was the target of outrage when during a 15 minute speech at the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture, she did not call out Israel for being an apartheid state because of the ongoing Gaza genocide which has now claimed more than 20,000 lives.
Malala also spoke on the show about the Nelson Mandela event where she was the key note speaker, discussing the gender apartheid in Afghanistan, where women and girls face oppression from the Taliban.
“When I got the opportunity to speak at the Nelson Mandela event, it was important for me to speak about the gender apartheid we’re witnessing today in Afghanistan against women and girls. We can call this situation an apartheid because women and girls are being oppressed and are being deprived of their basic human rights. The state, which is responsible for protecting these women, is the one who is oppressing them.”
Malala said her lecture addressed the world and the United Nations to urgently address this matter, and to reform the definition of apartheid to include gender in it, so the conversation keeps going forward. She said she will continue to push world leaders to reflect on how women in Afghanistan cannot study, go outside their homes or even visit a doctor without permission from a man.
Malala also addressed the ongoing Afghan refugee crisis in Pakistan, calling it a “cruel decision” to send young Afghan girls back to a country where they would never be allowed to study again.
“This is a difficult time for many Afghan families who are being forcefully sent back to Afghanistan. Several of them escaped in 2021 because of the threat of the Taliban’s rise, and among them are several feminist activists whose lives are under threat if they went back. Some of these families had stayed in Afghanistan for 20 to 30 years, and have girls who were studying in schools…I am extremely worried for these girls because she will never be able to see a school if she is sent back to Afghanistan.”
Malala slammed the government decision as against our “human rights, culture and religion’. She pointed out that in Islam, Muslims are urged to take care of others. The activist urged Pakistani authorities to revoke the decision and give support to Afghan refugees, to prevent little girls from going back to a country which would rob them of their rights.
Afghanistan’s Taliban government has urged Pakistan to allow undocumented Afghans in the country more time to leave as pressure mounts at border posts swarmed by thousands of returnees fleeing the threat of deportation.
Islamabad has given 1.7 million Afghans it says are living illegally in the country until November 1 to leave voluntarily or be forcibly removed.
More than 130,000 people have left Pakistan since the order was given at the start of October, according to border officials in the towns of Torkham and Chaman, creating bottlenecks at either sides of crossings.
In a statement late Tuesday, Taliban authorities thanked Pakistan and other countries that have hosted millions of Afghans who fled their country during decades of conflict, but “asked them to not forcibly deport Afghans with little notice but to give them time to prepare”.
Since taking power in 2021, the Taliban government has urged Afghans to return home, but has also condemned Pakistan’s actions, saying nationals are being punished for tensions between Islamabad and Kabul, and calling for people to be given more time to depart.
Afghan Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has deemed Pakistan’s strategy to expel undocumented Afghan nationals as “unacceptable” and has urged authorities to revisit the policy.
The behavior of Pakistan against Afghan refugees is unacceptable. The Pakistani side should reconsider its plan. Afghan refugees are not involved in Pakistan’s security problems. As long as they leave Pakistan voluntarily, that country should tolerate them.
— Zabihullah (..ذبـــــیح الله م ) (@Zabehulah_M33) October 4, 2023
Only a day before Taliban’s response, on October 4, the caretaker government set November 1 as a deadline for the illegal immigrants residing in Pakistan, warning that action will be taken against them after the deadline. The decision was taken during an apex committee meeting on the National Action Plan (NAP) at the Prime Minister’s House.
“We have given them [foreigners residing in Pakistan unlawfully] a deadline of November 1 to willingly return to their countries and if they don’t, all law enforcement agencies (LEAs) of the state and provinces will deport them,” announced Interim Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti on Tuesday at a press conference.
On Monday, the caretaker government led by Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar announced its intention to repatriate 1.1 million foreign nationals who are currently residing in Pakistan without legal authorisation. The government’s plan involves a multi-phase approach.
In the initial phase, those individuals who are residing in Pakistan unlawfully, colloquially referred to as “aliens”, will be subject to eviction, as will individuals who fail to renew their visas. Subsequent phases will target individuals with Afghan citizenship who possess proof of residence cards.
The decision to take action against illegally residing Afghan citizens was made due to concerns that this group is linked to activities such as funding, facilitating, and smuggling terrorists. Additionally, a significant number of Afghan nationals have not renewed their proof of residence in Pakistan, further raising security concerns.
However, the United Nations (UN) said Tuesday that refugees residing in Pakistan should be allowed to exit the country voluntarily and no pressure should be exerted on them.
“Any refugee return must be voluntary and without any pressure to ensure protection for those seeking safety,” Qaisar Khan Afridi, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told Anadolu.
People react
After imposing Taliban on Afg, Pak security state is dealing Afghans like a vanquished people. Afghan refugees are its particular target. The intense hatred being sown today will breed animosity which will be reaped by many generations. The darkest chapter of Pak Afghan policy.
Leave Pakistan before 1st November 2023 or face the consequences. Caretaker Interior Minister @PakSarfrazbugti announced big crackdown against illegal immigrants especially Afghan nationals residing in Pakistan without passport and visa. There is immediate panic in money market,…
