PESHAWAR: A local court on Friday granted bail to the teenage son of a Pakistani woman and an Afghan man over his recent arrest due to “illegal stay” in the country during a crackdown on undocumented migrants.

Judicial magistrate Hassan Ali Khan accepted the bail petition of Kamran on condition of furnishing two surety bonds of Rs100,000 each.

The petitioner’s name was mentioned along with five other people in an FIR registered at Shahpur police station on Nov 15.

The police claimed that those people were Afghan nationals and didn’t have any legal documents to stayin Pakistan.

Peshawar court asks him to furnish two surety bonds of Rs100,000 each

Advocate Nauman Muhib Kakakhel appeared for the petitioner and said the teenage boy was arrested as a ’witch hunt“ was launched against illegal Afghan migrants during which even legally staying Afghans had also been arrested.

He saidthat he was charged under Section 14 of the Foreigners Act, 1946.

The counsel argued that the petitioner was born to a Pakistani woman and an Afghan man, so he was a Pakistani citizen by descent under Section 5 of the Citizenship Act, 1951.

He argued that the petitioner’s mother was a Pakistan national, who had also moved the Peshawar High Court to seek orders for the grant of the Pakistan Origin Card to her husband and citizenship to her children.

Mr Kakakhel said that though the law was clear on the matter, authorities were refusing to register those people or issue identity documents to them to enable them to have a livelihood in Pakistan.

He argued that the teenager was not covered under the definition of a foreigner as mentioned in the Foreigners Act, 1946.

The counsel argued that though the Foreigners Act, 1946, didn’t allow the grant of bail, the petitioner was entitled to it as a Pakistani citizen and that he couldn’t be charged with violating the Foreigners Act.

He claimed that Pakistanis were also being harassed and arrested on the excuse that they’re Afghan nationals but the Nadra didn’t help protect them.

CONTEMPT PLEA: A Pakistani national has filed a contempt petition in Peshawar High Court against the federal government for not issuing citizenship certificate to his Afghan wife in accordance with an earlier order of the court.

Petitioner Tariq Shah, a resident of Peshawar, has requested the court to initiate contempt proceedings against the respondents, including the interior minister, the National Database and Registration Authority chairman and its director-general in Islamabad and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The petition was filed through advocates Irfan Ali Yousafzai and Abdul Rehman.

The petitioner said that he earlier filed a petition in the high court but that was disposed of on Dec 20, 2022, by a bench headed by then chief justice Qaiser Rashid Khan.

He said that the bench had directed the government to grant citizenship certificates to the petitioner’s wife after he applied to the ministry of interior through the prescribed Form “F” along with necessary documents.

He added that the court had directed that the said documents would be processed and after due clearance from the security agencies and fulfilling all the codal formalities, the citizenship certificate would be issued in favour of his wife in accordance with law and thereafter, she would be eligible for the grant of the computerised national identity cards.

The petitioner contended that he had fulfilled all the codal formalities and had approached the respondents with certified copies of the required documents, but in vain.

He claimed that he had time and again approached respondents for the implementation of the court’s verdict but they had willfully been committing contempt of the court by not following its orders.

Published in Dawn, November 25th, 2023