LAHORE: The Punjab government will ‘temporarily’ house Afghan refugees who are arriving in Pakistan in the wake of the recent crisis in Afghanistan after the Taliban took over the neighbouring country.

“Police and the city district administration are making arrangements on the orders of the Home Department for the stay of Afghans in hotels and sub-campus of some universities in Lahore,” said Additional Commissioner Amanullah Qudwai.

Law enforcement agencies and city district administration officials had issued directions to vacate the University of Engineering and Technology (UET), Government College University (GCU) and University of Health Sciences (UHS) Kala Shah Kaku sub-campuses for housing the Afghan refugees.

Following the directions, the administrations of these varsities had ordered their hundreds of students and the employees to vacate the residences, hostels and offices established on their Kala Shah Kaku sub-campuses.

Students, teachers told to vacate hostels, residences

Teachers and students of these universities told Dawn that civil and military officials, including Additional Commissioner Mr Qudwai, had visited the sub-campuses late on Thursday night and ordered them to vacate the hostels and other residential buildings.

They said hundreds of policemen had been deputed outside the sub-campuses. They added that half of the students were attending on-campus classes because of the Covid SOPs.

“Some of the students also had to appear in the exams. How could they ask them to vacate the hostels?” they asked.

The students and teachers also criticised the decision of housing the Afghan refugees in their hostels and classrooms because it would also affect their daily routine. They argued that closing the classes again would result in further educational losses as their studies had already been suffering because of the lockdowns caused by the pandemic.

They demanded the government to arrange some other places to house the Afghan refugees.

The GCU sub-campus was completely vacated, while those of the UHS and UET were not vacated till filing of the report.

Hundreds of the students and other employees were staying in the hostels of UHS and UET and their administrations had told the district government and law enforcement officials that they could not vacate the hostels because in that case they would also have to suspend the classes.

A senior official on condition of anonymity said the government officials were giving verbal orders to vacate the hostels and sub-campuses.

He said the officials were of the view that the refugees would stay here for some time as under the US arrangement they would be shifted to some other places soon.

Mr Qudwai also told Dawn that the district administration was directed to make arrangements for the temporary stay of Afghan refugees. He added that it was informed that the sub-campuses of these universities were available and could be used to house the refugees.

He said the officials were visiting the sub-campuses on the direction of the Punjab Home Department and it was not clear yet whether the refugees were being transported to Lahore or not.

He said the refugees would be provided temporary stay on these sub-campuses as later they might be shifted to hotels.

According to some media reports, the Afghan refugees had started arriving in Islamabad and most of them had been working with the US and allied forces in Afghanistan.

While addressing a press conference in Lahore, Federal Minister for Interior Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said the Chaman and Torkham borders were open as Pakistan was issuing 21-day transit visas to the Afghans.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2021