Pakistan's crackdown on Afghan refugees is a risky gambit

Two weeks after the Taliban's takeover of Kabul in August 2021, Lt Gen Faiz Hamid, then head of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), while staying in Kabul's Plush Serena Hotel was asked how he thought the situation in Afghanistan would develop. The smiling General, assuredly sipping tea during a carefully orchestrated photo shoot, famously remarked “Don’t worry. Everything will be OK.” In the euphoria of victory, he was perhaps drawing confidence from the then Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan, who had earlier declared that “The Taliban have broken the chains of slavery”.  

Two years later, in an ironic turn of events, while General Faiz Hamid has retired into oblivion, Incarcerated Imran Khan is fighting an existential judicial battle and Pakistan's relationship with the interim Afghan Taliban government has turned tumultuous.  

A forced hand   

With the significant increase in violence levels across the Country and especially the rise in influence of TTP in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), the security forces in Pakistan have come under a severe strain. Against the backdrop of the growing audacity of attacks, as seen in Chitral in September this year and a bomb blast in Mustang in which over 60 people were killed, the Pakistan Government directed illegal immigrants to leave by 31 October or face forcible expulsion.  

The decision was accompanied by what the Afghan Embassy in Pakistan described as a  '‘ruthless operation against Afghan refugees, without distinguishing between genders and even arresting women and children".  In the nationwide crackdown, Police in Sindh province have detained approximately 1,100 Afghan nationals while 1,126 foreign nationals were detained in Islamabad. Similar large-scale arrests are also being reported in KPK and Balochistan province.  

As per the UNHCR factsheet on Pakistan’s refugees, as a result of this brutal crackdown, more than 6,000 families have been repatriated to Afghanistan in the last two months while some families have also fled to neighbouring Iran.  

People without a country   

Afghan refugees are the third-largest displaced population in the world after Syrian and Ukrainian refugees. In 2023, there were at least 8.2 million Afghans hosted across 103 different countries, with a vast majority living in Pakistan and neighbouring Iran. The Soviet Invasion in 1979 resulted in a mass exodus of millions of Afghan Refugees into Pakistan. 

Thereafter, the porous nature of the Durand Line and socio-religious affinity resulted in a regular stream of people from Afghanistan into Pakistan. According to a February 2017 UNHCR Report, approximately 1.3 million Afghans were registered refugees in Pakistan while 880,000 had acquired the legal status to stay in Pakistan. The numbers increased drastically after the US withdrawal in August 2021, and it is estimated that approximately 3.7 million Afghans are currently staying in Pakistan with 1.7 million of them staying illegally. Some of these possess expired visas, while others have entered the country illegally without any documents.  

Overall, there are three categories of Afghan residents who are currently residing in Pakistan. The first group comprises individuals, who arrived in Pakistan in 1978, and had Proof of Registration cards while the second category includes those Afghans who have been in Pakistan for the past few years and possess Afghan citizen cards verified by the previous government of Afghanistan. The third category is the illegal refugees which are now living on tenterhooks across Pakistan.  

Although the Government claims that its decision is directed only against illegal immigrants irrespective of their nationality, it is apparent that the announcement has created fears of harassment, detention and deportation amongst the Afghan population in Pakistan.  

A complex relationship   

Pakistan has always attempted to cultivate a pliable regime in Kabul in pursuit of its policy of "strategic depth ". This has resulted in a complex bilateral relationship characterized not only by strong historical and cultural linkages but also by mutual distrust and discord. The challenges of border security due to the disputed legality of the Durand Line along with allegations of cross-border terrorism and drug trafficking have further hampered their relations and resulted in frequent tensions. 

Even at the people-to-people level, while the Afghans were initially welcomed due to racial and religious affinity, the subsequent strain on infrastructure, resources and local economic factors caused enormous tensions between the refugees and the locals. The local population, especially in Balochistan and Sindh, are also concerned by the possibilities of demographic change and have started considering refugees as a threat to their majority status. This negative sentiment is evident in the social media exchanges where Afghan refugees are routinely blamed and ridiculed for their political affiliations and lack of gratitude.  

The lengthy and troublesome documentation procedures further lend the poor Afghans vulnerable to harassment from police and intelligence agencies. Afghan people particularly in Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta have experienced innumerable tales of malpractices about how they are harassed, and money extorted from them by the law enforcement agencies.  

Drivers of decision

Taliban fighter (Left) and Afghan special forces operatives (Right) [Image: AP]

The landmark decision to crack down on Afghan refugees is clearly driven by the security establishment which attributes the rapid deterioration in the internal security situation in Pakistan to the reluctance of the Taliban Government to take substantive actions against safe sanctuaries of TTP and other anti-Pakistan groups that are existing in Afghanistan.

After the Taliban's vehement denial of any complicity with TTP and the failure of diplomatic initiatives to cajole the Taliban into launching operations against "terror sanctuaries", Pakistan has decided to leverage the issue of Afghan refugees to attain its policy objectives. In addition, it is also taking other stringent measures such as the introduction of a “single-document regime” on all international border crossings by stopping “Tazkirah'', a special permit that dates to the British era and imposition of one-sided 10% duty on products being traded under the Afghanistan–Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA).  

These harsh steps certainly belie Islamabad's claims of traditional bonhomie and demonstrate Pakistan's desire to arm-twist Afghanistan into meeting its demands. Another reason for the renewed focus on Afghan refugees is the grave economic crisis being faced by Pakistan. Although the prolonged crisis is a result of economic mismanagement and lack of structural reforms, GHQ-influenced policymakers feel that Pakistan can now ill afford to host Afghan refugees and see them as an avoidable drain on its struggling economy. Therefore, in Pakistan's policy calculus, the high number of Afghan refugees poses a heavy burden on its meagre national resources and has negative security, socio-economic and political implications.  

An added factor in Pakistan's thought process is the rapidly changing global order characterised by the competitive rise of China, paradigm shifts in Middle East Asia and the prolonged Russian-Ukraine War which has reduced Afghanistan to a 'forgotten conflict'. The waning interest of the Western World and a corresponding decrease in the flow of foreign assistance may have also prompted Pakistan to rake up this issue in an attempt to rekindle international attention towards its backyard.  

An impending backlash   

Although there seems to be some public support within Pakistan for this heavy-handed approach, the decision has drawn widespread criticism from the international community with humanitarian organizations such as UNHCR and Amnesty International calling on the Pakistan government to rethink its treatment of Afghan refugees.  

Meanwhile, the Taliban government has understandably expressed its reservations over the future of these refugees many of whom had left Afghanistan in fear of persecution and reprisals by the Taliban cadres. Since the Afghan government doesn't have the capacity to handle such an influx of large poor families, it is currently relying on diplomatic parleys with Pakistan to settle this issue amicably.  

Despite this conciliatory approach, the anger within Afghanistan is brewing rapidly as was evident in the reaction of Afghan interim deputy foreign Minister Sher Muhammad Abbas Stanikzai who termed Pakistan's decision to expel Afghan refugees as  "out of line with the manners of neighbour countries and international law " while warning the Pakistani officials to not harm bilateral relations by making baseless allegations against Afghans. He even went to the extent of reminding Pakistan that "We have safeguarded Pakistani interests in the past, and if our Mujahideen didn't fight, the Soviet Union would have extended their reach till Gwadar".  Similar sentiments were expressed by Afghan interim defence minister Mullah Yaqub Akhund while speaking at the recent graduation ceremony of the police academy in Kabul.

The heart-wrenching stories and visuals of harassment of women and children, arbitrary arrests and deportation of Afghans will also feed naturally into the recruitment base of radical organizations such as TTP and ISPP who are bound to exploit the simmering discontent in tribal areas on either side of Durand Line.  

The brutal crackdown on Afghan refugees will also certainly provoke the Pakhtun nationalist parties such as ANP and PTM and help them to further intensify their anti-establishment narrative. Pakistan is conscious that its decision to forceful expulsion of Afghans would further diminish the goodwill that Pakistan had initially earned by hosting Afghan refugees. It is therefore emphasising in its official stance that its deportation plan is not targeted against the registered refugees and would be gradually carried out in phases.  

An uncertain future 

The looming uncertainty about the future of Afghan refugees is likely to persist unless a comprehensive rehabilitation agreement is put in place by all the stakeholders. The Taliban Government has so far exercised remarkable discretion and autonomy in policymaking. Although there are significant dependencies of Afghanistan on Pakistan such as in terms of economic support, trade routes and diplomatic recognition, the sensitive issue of safe sanctuaries for TTP and its ideological linkages to Taliban provide a potent leverage for Afghan leadership in their engagement with Pakistan.

It is therefore unlikely that they will fully succumb to the pressure tactics of Pakistan. The Taliban Government will also need substantial aid and humanitarian assistance to deal with the rehabilitation of repatriated refugees. The international community on its part should ensure that the plight of Afghan refugees in Pakistan doesn't go unnoticed. Countries that have offered special relocation schemes to Afghan individuals facing persecution by the Taliban, including the USA, Canada, United Kingdom and Germany, must not 'Turn a blind eye' now and should fasten the process of issuing visas so that the eligible persons currently in Pakistan can move at the earliest to the respective host country.  

Millions of poor Afghan refugees in Pakistan face a difficult future. For them, Life is not about living, it is about mere survival. Pakistan's idea of collective punishment of Afghans only makes it worse.

(The writer Colonel Sushil Tanwar, VSM, is a serving officer of the Indian Army. The highly decorated officer is a keen Pakistan observer and has a rich experience of operating in the Counter Insurgency environment . He was associated as a research fellow with the Centre for Air Power Studies (CAPS), New Delhi and has also served in the UN Peacekeeping Mission in Sudan.)