PESHAWAR, Dec 5: Refugee camps are becoming a breeding ground for crimes since the Commissionerate for the Afghan Refugees (CAR) retrenched security staff owing to shortage of funds. Officials said that the security mechanism for refugee camps had almost collapsed after the large-scale retrenchment in the CAR and the existing staff was not able to cope with the law and order situation.

“The federal government has turned down the Commissionerate’s request to provide funds for retaining security staff at the refugee camps in the NWFP,” an official told Dawn.

He said that after closure of camps in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) this year more than 350 security personnel of the CAR were laid off due to shortage of funds.

Apart from the government security system, each refugee camp had its own internal security arrangements, which was managed by elders of the camp, but had been dissolved, an official said.

A security agency recently reported that Kacha Garhi camp located opposite the Hayatabad township had become a den of bandits, pickpockets and robbers in the area. The government had decided to demolition the camp in 2003, but after intervention by Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, the plan was put off.

The camp, which shelters about 54,258 refugees and mostly belonging to Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province, is presently guarded by only 10 security personnel of the Commissionerate.

A social worker, associated with an Afghan NGO, said that criminal activities in the Kacha Garhi camp were on the rise as compared to other refugee settlements in the area.

The Hayatabad police station also confirmed involvement of Afghans in robberies, carjacking other crimes in the posh locality. Senior police officials said that presence of Afghans was one of the factors of the soaring crime rate in the city.

Official figures show that despite repatriation of nearly 2.7 million Afghans refugees from Pakistan since 2002, the Peshawar district was to the day accommodating the largest concentration of Afghans.

According to the Afghan census report Peshawar district shelters about 608,653 Afghans.

CAR (security) Additional Commissioner Fermanullah Jan said the retrenchment of staff had put a negative impact on the security situation in the refugee camps.

The Jalozai camp, in the southeast of Peshawar and having a population of 118,506 people, was being guarded by only 14 personnel and the Khurasan camp had seven security guards for 8,434 individuals.

The Shamshato refugee camp was dismantled officially about one-and-half year ago, but some 5,000 people were still there and had been reportedly a point for shady activities.

He said that in other refugee camps the commissionerate had two to three security guards. Nearly 200 big and small refugee camps still exist in the province. He said that initially total strength of the security staff was about 1,400, which was sufficient to monitor activities in camps.