SWABI: More than 300 illegal Afghan nationals have been arrested by district police during raids conducted in different localities of the district here on Sunday.

Sources said that after the district administration and police officials’ unanimous decision to repatriate illegal Afghans from the district a crackdown had been initiated.

The district police have issued an order to SHOs to keep data of all illegal Afghans in jurisdictions of their police stations.

Sources said that a total of 341 Afghan refugees had been arrested during raids conducted in Topi, Razaar, Chota Lahor tehsils and in the jurisdiction of district headquarters Swabi.

They said the raids will continue and all Afghan refugees, who are illegally staying in the district, will be arrested and repatriated in an honourable manner.

It has been learnt that there are still around 30,000 Afghan refugees living in different areas of Swabi district, majority of them have been documented, but some of them are staying illegally.

The sources said that these Afghan refugees were living in Gandaf Refugees Camp and Gohati Refugees Camp, besides a large number of them were staying in various farming fields and cities.

The district administration has been striving for the last few months, using different tactics and gestures, to ensure their peaceful repatriation at the earliest, the sources said, adding that the Afghans expressed their willingness to leave soon after Eidul Fitr after winding up their business.

The district administration had already sealed all the shops in Gohati refugees camp, said the sources.

The refugees, however, say it is very difficult to for them to wind up their business so quickly because they have established their businesses through hard efforts during over past 40 years.

Afghan businessmen said that they were grateful to the government and people of Pakistan for allowing them the opportunity to stay in Pakistan for so long, establishing their businesses and earning livelihood in a respectable manner here.

“I was born and grew up here in Pakistan and never visited Afghanistan. However, Afghanistan is my motherland and now I have decided to return to my country along with my family soon,” said Abdullah Gul.

Another Afghan refugee told Dawn that his relatives who had returned to Afghanistan have urged them to return to their homeland peacefully with dignity to avoid forced expulsion that is why they have decided to wind up their businesses and move back with dignity and honour.

Sources said that the district administration and district police officials had issued instructions to every SHO to keep a tight watch over them while asking the refugees to make arrangements on emergency basis to return peacefully to Afghanistan, otherwise legal action would be taken against them.

Meanwhile, a senior district administration official said that now the Afghan nationals had realised that they no longer could stay in Pakistan and the best option for them was to go back to their motherland as soon as possible.

When contacted the Swabi deputy commissioner, Dr Tariqullah Khan, said that now they would start filing FIRs against those Pakistanis who provided shelter or shops to the Afghan refugees and the district administration was completely focused on their peaceful repatriation.

Published in Dawn, March 16th, 2026