KHYBER: With the federal government ordering arrest and deportation of Afghan nationals living in the country without valid visas, the repatriation of such families via the Torkham border has gained momentum.
Officials at the Hamza Baba transit point in Landi Kotal told Dawn on Thursday that an influx of visitors was witnessed at the registration and verification desks as more and more Afghan families were going to return to their country due to fear of arrest and deportation.
They said the number of individuals approaching the Nadra desk at the transit point daily after token issuance had jumped up to 1200-1300 compared to 600-700 with each of them or a family head accompanied by a minimum of five children who were exempted from registration.
“The tally of Afghans returning via the Torkham border on a daily basis has jumped from 3,500-4,000 to around 6,000,” an official said, expecting a further surge in the number in the days ahead.
Officials said that a police crackdown on undocumented Afghan nationals on the strict orders of the federal government had forced the remaining refugees to “wind up their belongings” and leave for Afghanistan as soon as possible.
They said that the arrest and deportation of a number of individual Afghans had also forced their remaining family members to voluntarily return to their country as they too had become a target for forced deportation, and thus the recent increase in repatriation.
Police in Landi Kotal said that they arrested and deported some Afghans who would get themselves registered at the transit point but would later flee back to Peshawar or any other Khyber Pakhtunkhwa city in private vehicles.
They said that a mechanism had been devised to escort all registered and verified Afghan nationals to the Torkham border in officially hired passenger coaches, controlling any chances of registered Afghans ‘vanishing’ back in the local population.
“Once these Afghan nationals enter the Hamza Baba transit point and are registered with the Nadra staff after due verification from other intelligence agencies, they are then huddled into official vehicles and taken to the border crossing from where they cannot return,” an official said.
Meanwhile, traders, customs clearing agents and transporters on Thursday threatened to block the Peshawar-Torkham Highway for an indefinite period if the government failed to reopen the Torkham border for bilateral trade with Afghanistan without further delay.
Addressing a news conference at the District Press Club Landi Kotal, Torkham customs clearing agents’ association president Mujeebullah Shinwari, All-Torkham transporters union president Haji Azeemullah and local traders’ representative Shah Jehan said that the continuous closure of the Torkham border had caused them losses of millions of rupees, while daily exports worth $2.5 million and imports worth Rs540 million were also lost.
They said that they could no longer tolerate the closure of the border as things had gone out of their control due to excessive monetary losses and unemployment of thousands of local people, while they waited impatiently for the last nine months while preferring national interest, regional peace and stability.
The leaders said that alongside loss of their legitimate occupations, they bore additional losses due to damages to at least 50 customs clearing offices due to clashes between border security forces of both countries but none of them offered any official assistance or compensation.
They urged authorities to intervene for early resolution of border and security issues with Afghanistan through dialogue while immediately restoring all trading activities at the border.
Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2026