ISLAMABAD, Jan 21: The government has decided to shift all Afghan refugees from Islamabad to the border areas, sources told Dawn.

This decision was taken at a meeting of the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration held here on Monday, the sources said.

The meeting was presided over by the Islamabad chief commissioner, Mir Laiq Shah. The meeting was also attended by the deputy commissioner, Tariq Mehmood Khan, SSP Nasir Khan Durrani and other senior officials of the ICT administration.

The meeting was informed that a plan was being chalked out to shift all Afghan refugees to the border areas in two phases so that they could be resettled in their homeland.

The sources said the government wanted to shift the refugees in the shortest possible time.

The meeting decided that in the first phase, Afghans living in camps and Kutcha Abadis would be shifted. In the second phase, those Afghans would be asked to leave the city who had set up businesses in the Capital.

On the other hand, a majority of Afghan refugees, who had businesses or were working in Islamabad, were not ready to return to their country, a Dawn survey showed.

A group of Afghan refugees, while talking to Dawn, refused to go to Afghanistan, saying the new rulers in their country were more cruel than the Taliban.

“Though we have our properties, houses, and some family members in Afghanistan, we cannot go back unless and until permanent peace is restored there,” an Afghan businessman, Abdul Raees, said.

He said a whole generation had grown up in Pakistan which had never seen Afghanistan, therefore, it would be unfair to ask them to leave Pakistan.

He said most of the Afghans had inter-married with the locals and therefore could not leave Pakistan. He was of the view that in many countries, citizenship was given to immigrants after 20 years. Therefore, most of the Afghan refugees in Pakistan deserved this right, he added.