Afghan refugees complain of mistreatment by Pakistani police

Local officials in Kandahar province said Sunday that the number of Afghan refugees returning from Spin Boldak crossing has increased and that the immigrants who have just been deported criticize from the ill treatment of Pakistani police officers.

The returned refugees say all their assets and properties remained in Pakistan and that the country’s police forcibly deported them.

“They gave us a month deadline, everyone sold everything they had for half the price and came home. I have no crime but just being an Afghan,” said Bakhtiyar, a deported refugee.

“There is a lot of oppression against Afghan refugees and they also don’t own their property. They [Pakistanis] enter the houses of the immigrants at night and take money from them,” said Painda, another deported refugee.

Local officials meanwhile said that since past forty days, nearly 5,000 thousand families have returned to the country from Spin-Boldak crossing alone, which totals 30,000 individuals.

“The situation is very critical and the immigration principles are not respected in Pakistan and the refugees are forcibly deported in this cold weather,” said Abdul Latif Hakimi, an employee of the Kandahar Immigration Department at Spin Boldak crossing.

According to statistics, 1,800 Afghan refugees have returned to the country from Pakistan only on Saturday and the majority of them have been forcibly deported.

While Pakistan’s deadline for deporting Afghan immigrants will end in two days, hundreds of Afghan refugees have left Pakistan before the deadline.

Although it is pleasant for Afghan migrants to return home, but the misbehavior of the Pakistani police and the forced deportation has angered them. They say that the behavior of the Pakistani police in visiting Afghans homes in Pakistan is inhumane.

The houses of Afghans are attacked at night and Afghans are forced to leave their everything and leave Pakistan, refugees said.

Pakistan’s deadline will end in two days and the country has decided to deport 1.7 million Afghan refugees.