Caretaker Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti on Tuesday announced a November 1 deadline for illegal immigrants in the country to leave Pakistan, otherwise, all law enforcement agencies would deport them.
The interior minister was addressing a press conference in Islamabad and briefing the media on the details of the decisions taken during a meeting of the National Apex Committee.
“The most important thing that was decided was that the welfare and security of a Pakistani are most important for us over any country or its policy. The first decision taken is about our illegal immigrants who are living in Pakistan through illegal means.
“We have given them a deadline of Nov 1 to willingly return to their countries and if they don’t, all law enforcement agencies of the state and provinces will deport them.”
Separately, interim Information Minister Murtaza Solangi said illegal immigrants now had 28 days to leave Pakistan.
Bugti said the same deadline would apply for entry into Pakistan without a passport or visa, adding that people would not be able to enter the country without those documents after Nov 1.
He said entry without the aforementioned documents was not allowed in any other country of the world.
The interior minister added that e-tazkiras (electronic Afghan identity cards) would be accepted from October 10-31 and afterwards the abovementioned passport and visa policy would apply.
Furthermore, he said Nov 1 onwards an operation would kick off, by a task force already created in the interior ministry, that would target illegal properties and businesses owned by illegal immigrants or that were being run in collaboration with Pakistan.
“Our intelligence agencies and
More to follow.
