May 16, 2007	Wednesday	Rabi-us-Sani 28, 1428

PESHAWAR, May 15: Law-enforcement agencies launched an operation in the Kacha Garhi camp on Tuesday and demolished 80 shops and cabins of Afghan refugees who are reluctant to vacate the site.

The operation caused anger among the residents of the camp. They asked the

authorities concerned to halt the action

immediately. Police and security personnel of the Commissionerate for Afghan Refugees with the help of bulldozers demolished 80 shops, cabins and four houses in the camp housing over 60,000 registered Afghans.

Eyewitnesses said that law-enforcement agencies cordoned off the camp and launched the demolition operation without prior notice.

However, an official said that authorities had asked inhabitants of the camp to vacate it before June 16, otherwise all infrastructure would be demolished.

Elders at the camp denounced the action of the Commissionerate. Haji Doost Mohammad, heading a 35-member Shoora, said that they would not own responsibility for any adverse reaction by the inhabitants of the camp, which had been set up in the early ’80s. He said: “The government has backed out from its earlier commitment of not using force.”

The camp’s residents demanded a three-year extension.

The government had announced to wind up Kacha Garhi and Jalozai camps in the NWFP and two camps in Balochistan.

The authorities had asked residents of the Kacha Garhi camp to go back to Afghanistan under the UN-sponsored voluntary repatriation programme otherwise they would be relocated to Dir and Chitral districts.