SC moved for extension in wealthy Afghan refugees? stay
 

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) was requested on Saturday to direct the authorities to extend the stay for five years time of those Afghan refugees who have established their businesses in Pakistan and their investment is **t less than Rs20 million. Zulfiqar Ahmed Bhutta, advocate, filed a petition under Article 184(3) of the Constitution making secretary Cabinet Division, secretary Ministry of Foreign Affairs, secretary KPK government, IG KPK, IG Punjab, DG FIA and commissioner Afghan refugees as respondents.

The petitioner claimed that the government had allowed the Afghan immigrants to stay in the country till **vember 2016, adding that security institutions of the country were harassing the Afghan immigrants despite the government’s permission allowing them to remain in Pakistan. The applicant stated that the security institutions intended to take advantage from the assets owned by Afghan immigrants. He prayed the apex court that the immigrants, who had assets worth Rs20 million in the country, should be allowed to stay for five years and those who had assets equivalent to Rs10 million should be allowed to stay for two years whereas the rest of the Afghan immigrants should be allowed to remain in the country till December 2017.

The petitioner prayed the court to direct secretary Cabinet Division, secretary Ministry of Foreign Affairs and secretary KP to impose a ban upon officials of police, law enforcing agencies and the judiciary **t to purchase the properties of Afghan refugees in any manner and whatsoever. He further prayed that the DG FIA be directed to maintain record of those government officials who already purchased properties of Afghan refugees after January 1, 2016. He further prayed that the DG FIA and IG Punjab may be directed **t to harass even a single of Afghan refugee in any manner. The petitioner contended that in the current year, the government of Pakistan, in view of satisfactory situation in Afghanistan, decided to direct the Afghan immigrants to leave the Pakistan territory and to go back to their homeland.

It was a soft direction on the part of Pakistani government but on August 7, 2016, after reading dailies of Pakistan, the petitioner observed that some of the provincial officials of KP are rudely and against the spirit of federal government instruction to deal with Afghan refugees softly, started harassing them.

The petitioner submitted that due to political instability in the system to deal with such sensitive issues, some officials in lieu of considering national interest have started to look after their personal interest and some of them have started to harass the Afghan refugees.

He said that he came to k**w that some government officials who are on influential positions want to get undue benefits regarding refugees’ properties. He said that some of government officials are interested to purchase their properties on meagre prices. So, they are harassing the Afghan refugees through state machinery.

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