PESHAWAR, March 18: The Afghan refugees repatriation programme sponsored by the UNHCR is likely to become an exercise in futility despite the fact that the activity at the Takhta Baig voluntary registration centre in the Khyber Agency is picking up.

A large number of refugee families are sneaking back into Pakistan through Sasubi Kandaw in the Khyber Agency and Gandaw in the Mohmand Agency to re-appear before the repatriation staff at Takhta Baig for registration, concerned officials confirmed.

An official of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees told Dawn that during the last two weeks some 100 “re-cycled” refugee families had been detected at the Takhta Baig voluntary repatriation centre.

Besides, over 900 cases of fake refugee families have been rejected on technical grounds. “They are doing this practice for monetary gains,” a UN worker said. The UNHCR had tightened the process to screen out the cheaters, he said, revealing that only on Monday over 300 cases had been rejected.

A traveller, Abbas Khan, who crossed into Pakistan through the same route, confirmed the illegal entry of refugees, saying he had seen more than 4,000 Afghans at Sasubi trailing the mountainous routes leading to Pakistan.

“I did not see a single personnel of the border security force to stop this big crowd from crossing into Pakistan,” Mr Abbas said.

The home and tribal department claimed that Khyber Rifles and army contingents had been deployed in the region to stop infiltrators, but still illegal immigrants are frequently entering Pakistan.

An official said that the government had manned the border with Afghanistan properly but the border cannot be sealed completely because of the difficult terrain.

An Afghan refugee said that people crossed into Pakistan easily with the connivance of the border forces.

The modus operandi the refugees have adopted is that they registered half of their family members at the voluntary repatriation centre and received $100 and food assistance from the UNHCR office in Jalalabad in Nangarhar province.

Then these recycled refugees returned to Pakistan through unfrequented routes and re-appeared at the voluntary repatriation centre to become entitled for money.

Afghan Commissionerate officials estimated that 25 per cent of the total repatriated refugees were bogus and had registered themselves for monetary benefits.

According to official figures, till Monday over 52,000 refugees had registered themselves under the voluntary repatriation programme and crossed into Afghanistan.

The UNHCR is looking for an appropriate site near Azakhel on Grand Trunk Road to set up an additional repatriation centre to reduce burden on the Takhta Baig office.