Pakistan gave Afghan nationals until Tuesday to cross the Torkham border — which connects Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) with Afghanistan's Nangarhar province — on the basis of their Afghan national identity cards, it emerged on Saturday.

The local authorities had initially imposed an immediate ban on cross-border movement on the basis of the Afghan NICs.

"All have been informed that there is a complete ban on returning to Afghanistan on the basis of Afghan ID cards. So don't come to Torkham to travel to Afghanistan," stated a banner put up at the border by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa authorities in Pashto and Urdu languages.

Relevant officials had confirmed the development to Dawn.com.

It is pertinent to mention that until now Afghan national had been freely allowed to cross the Torkham border on the basis of Afghan national identity cards — also called tazkiras.

While there was no official confirmation from Pakistan on the matter, an official told Dawn.com that the decision to suspend the cross-border movement with a passport was taken as some individuals were found using fake identity cards.

However, later on Saturday, the authorities relaxed the restriction and announced that the Afghan national identity cards would be usable for cross-border movement until Tuesday.

The relaxation was made after the Afghan embassy raised the issued with Pakistani authorities, according to a statement posted on the embassy's Twitter in Pashto.

The statement said Pakistani officials had also given the assurance that steps would be taken to facilitate the cross-border movement.

The embassy informed Afghan citizens stuck at Torkham, as well as the Chaman border in Balochistan, that they could return to Afghanistan on the basis of only identity cards for the next three days.