KOHAT: A jirga of elders here has demanded of the government to restrict the movement of all Afghan refugees to their designated camps due to bad law and order situation and also ban their illegal property business.

The jirga of Junglekhel elders, in whose area the refugees have occupied property allegedly through land mafia, said that the refugees’ presence in the congested parts of the city and some of them having computerised national identity cards (CNICs) were the main hurdles to differentiating between the actual refugees and criminals.

The elders said that the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) should identify such Afghans and cancel their cards besides giving them exemplary punishment. They said that to start with the district administration should impose a ban on sale and purchase of houses and land under Section 144 and restrict the refugees’ movement to camps.

The jirga demanded that the refugees should not be allowed outside the Ghamkol and Ublan camps. They said that the administrator for Afghan refugees, Kohat, which was working under the Commissionerate of Afghan Refugees, Peshawar, be asked to implement the jirga decisions. It alleged that some of the Afghans were hired by gangsters and extortionists as their guards, who had also obtained mobile SIMs through their original Pakistani national identity cards illegally.

The elders claimed that the police were aware of the whole situation, but reluctant to take any step to arrest or stop them from working for local gangsters. They said that the refugees were freely moving from city to city in the country and across the border without any check, which should be stopped by the relevant authorities.

The jirga was also attended by MNA Shehryar Afridi, chairman of district development committee MPA Ziaullah Bangash and officials of the district administration. The administration tasked assistant commissioner Mohammad Ali Asghar to prepare a report in this regard and take action against refugees as demanded by the jirga.

They elders also welcomed the announcement made by Chief Minister Pervez Khattak for making serious efforts for repatriation of the refugees because normalcy had now been restored in Afghanistan.

Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2014