Peshawar:
Ali Amin Gandapur, the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), has called on the government to provide citizenship to Afghan citizens instead of deporting them.
“Afghan refugees are our neighbors. We once welcomed them with open arms, but now we follow a failed policy,” said Gandapur, a senior PTI leader, Sunday, while talking to a press conference after we hosted an IFTAR dinner at KP Chief Minister’s House.
On March 9, Pakistan issued a 24-day deadline for Afghan migrants to leave the country voluntarily and warned that those who remain after 31 March will be subjected to forced deportation, according to a statement from the Ministry of the Interior.
The directive applies to holders of the Afghan Citizen Card (ACC) as well as all undocumented Afghan citizens. The statement also warned that from April 1, authorities would launch a nationwide operation to exhibit remaining Afghan migrants.
“Holders of ACC must leave Pakistan by March 31, 2025. All undocumented foreign nationals and ACC holders are advised to leave voluntarily before this deadline. The deportation process begins on April 1, 2025,” the statement says.
When he talked about the question, Gandapur opposed the deportation of Afghans and called it an unignified approach. He urged the government to consider his decision and avoid forced removal.
“I am against the expulsion of Afghans residing in our province. Reference (Thurs) have been sent to the Foreign Ministry and the interior of negotiations with Afghanistan, but no response has yet been received. In the meantime, my proposal for conversations was criticized and taken as a joke.”
Gandapur also criticized the federal government and accused its incompetence of the deteriorating security situation in KP and Balochistan.
“They have to go through and change their policies; otherwise it won’t take long that conditions similar to those of 1971 emerge,” he warned.
He also claimed that the company had put everything at risk just to suppress a political party – PTI. Gandapur rejected claims that PTI founder Imran Khan was responsible for the country’s current crisis.
The discussion about his government’s financial performance said the minister of chief that his administration took over the responsibility, there wasn’t even enough money to pay the 15 -day value of government salaries.
“Now we have a profit of RS169 billion.
Under Ramazan, he said, distributed the government RS20 billion. Among the underprivileged, doubled children’s scholarships and increased zakat payments from RS12,000 to RS25,000.
