KHYBER: Cross-border movement of scores of daily wagers and porters has been badly affected after Afghan security officials confiscated passports from a large number of Pakistani and Afghan workers without citing any valid reason.

Sources at Torkham told Dawn that the Afghan border security officials had started a crackdown on Pakistani daily wagers and porters some three weeks ago and forcibly took their passports, and then refused to return the documents to them despite repeated requests from the affected persons.

The sources said the Afghan border security guards were not even allowing the affected workers to meet their higher authorities to convey them their grievances.

Farman Shinwari, a local labour leader, told Dawn that so far the Afghan authorities had not given any legal reason for confiscation of workers’ passports. He said they had lodged several complaints with the Afghan officials, but to no avail.

Mr Shinwari said workers were already badly affected by the new border management policy, which necessitated valid visa on their passports for cross-border movement, and the ‘illegal’ action of the Afghan authorities had rendered hundreds of daily wagers jobless.

He said during the last one year or so, hundreds of labourers had abandoned their jobs due to the strict visa regulations.

“With the visa policy strictly implemented and the recent incidents of forceful confiscation of our passports by the Afghan authorities, we do not see any immediate hope of revival of our decades-old profession,” he added.

Fahmeedullah, another labour leader, argued that this time the Afghan nationals were also not spared and their cross-border movement was restricted.

He said crackdown on them was started after Pakistan ordered expulsion of all illegal ‘aliens’ from its soil. He said they were in consultations with their colleagues, and were also trying to reach out to Afghan officials in Kabul and Jalalabad to help resolve the issue of passport confiscation.

Fahmeedullah insisted that after the introduction of the new visa policy, majority of local and Afghan labourers had obtained passports with visas for frequent cross-border movement duly stamped.

He warned of staging protest demonstrations if the Afghan authorities failed to return passports to daily wagers and porters.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2023