KARACHI: Pakistani police have detained hundreds of Afghan refugees holding Afghan Citizen Cards (ACCs) across the country, with activists claiming Friday the authorities are also rounding up refugees exempt from the current deportation round, though the government denies the allegation.
According to UN data, Pakistan hosts more than 2.8 million Afghan nationals who crossed the porous border in a desperate attempt to escape decades of war and instability in their home country.
Around 1.3 million of them are formally registered as refugees and hold Proof of Registration (PoR) cards, which grant them legal protections. Another 800,000 Afghans possess ACCs, a separate identity document issued by the Pakistani government that recognizes them as Afghan nationals without offering refugee status. Last month, the government announced that ACC holders must leave Pakistan by March 31 or face deportation.
Since the start of April, police crackdowns have been reported in different Pakistani cities, though the federal authorities have not released any data on the recent detentions. The provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which borders Afghanistan, have said that 193 ACC holders have been deported from Peshawar.
“In Karachi, more than 100 PoR card holders have been detained, some of whom we managed to get released,” human rights activist Moniza Kakar, who is monitoring the process, told Arab News.
“Similarly, a large number of refugees with legal status have been detained for bribes in different cities of Punjab and the capital Islamabad,” she added.
The ongoing Afghan repatriation process is part of a broader drive launched in 2023, which has so far seen more than 800,000 Afghans expelled.
Pakistani authorities maintain Afghan nationals have been involved in militant attacks and organized crime, accusations Kabul denies.
The crackdown began amid a surge in violence in Pakistan by armed groups like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), whose leaders Islamabad claims are based in Afghanistan, a charge rejected by the Taliban administration.
Asked about the claims of an indiscriminate crackdown against Afghan nationals, Qadir Yar Tiwana, Director General of Media at the Ministry of Interior, refuted these allegations.
“No PoR card holders have been arrested,” he told Arab News over the phone. “If anyone possessing a PoR card is detained during the process, they are immediately released after verification of their credentials.”
Tiwana said the operation was only targeting “illegal immigrants” and was ongoing.
He added that detailed data on arrests and deportations would be shared at a later stage.
Requests for comment from the Sindh home minister and the Karachi Police chief went unanswered.
Hajji Abdullah Shah Bukhari, chairman of Afghan refugees in Sindh, agreed with Tiwana.
“Over 300 ACC holders have been detained in Karachi,” he said. “They [the police] are also taking some PoR card holders, but they [the refugees] are set free once their credentials are verified.”
Kakar, however, said this was only done after these refugees bribed the police.
“Hundreds of registered PoR card holders have contacted us saying they have been arrested and bribes were demanded of them,” she asserted.
Muzaffar Shah, a resident of Islamabad, corroborated these accounts, saying numerous refugees holding PoR cards had been taken from his neighborhood despite showing police their identity.
“The UNHCR is silent, the Taliban are quiet and the government of Pakistan is quiet, while poor refugees are facing hardship,” Shah, himself a registered refugee, said over the phone, referring to governmental functionaries and officials of the UN refugee agency.
Rahmatullah Jan, a refugee in Karachi, recalled being picked up alongside ACC holders in the Sohrab Goth area.
“Despite immediately presenting my PoR card to the raiding police, I was still taken to the station before eventually being released,” he said.
Spokespersons for the UNHCR and the consul general of Afghanistan in Karachi did not respond to requests for comment.
However, Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesperson for the Afghan government, agreed to address the issue over the phone.
“We expressed the desire that refugees should not be forced, but rather be left to make their own choice,” he said. “We have also urged Afghan refugees to return to their homeland, and we will welcome them.”
Pakistan detains hundreds of Afghans as allegations of bribery, unlawful arrests surface
https://arab.news/2xkt6
Pakistan detains hundreds of Afghans as allegations of bribery, unlawful arrests surface
- The government announced a March 31 deadline for ACC holders to leave the country or face deportation
- Spokesperson for the Afghan government says Kabul is ready to welcome repatriated refugee families
‘Look ahead or look up?’: Pakistan’s police face new challenge as militants take to drone warfare
- Officials say militants are using weapons and equipment left behind after allied forces withdrew from Afghanistan
- Police in northwest Pakistan say electronic jammers have helped repel more than 300 drone attacks since mid-2025
BANNU, Pakistan: On a quiet morning last July, Constable Hazrat Ali had just finished his prayers at the Miryan police station in Pakistan’s volatile northwest when the shouting began.
His colleagues in Bannu district spotted a small speck in the sky. Before Ali could take cover, an explosion tore through the compound behind him. It was not a mortar or a suicide vest, but an improvised explosive dropped from a drone.
“Now should we look ahead or look up [to sky]?” said Ali, who was wounded again in a second drone strike during an operation against militants last month. He still carries shrapnel scars on his back, hand and foot, physical reminders of how the battlefield has shifted upward.
For police in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, the fight against militancy has become a three-dimensional conflict. Pakistani officials say armed groups, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), are increasingly deploying commercial drones modified to drop explosives, alongside other weapons they say were acquired after the US military withdrawal from neighboring Afghanistan.
Security analysts say the trend mirrors a wider global pattern, where low-cost, commercially available drones are being repurposed by non-state actors from the Middle East to Eastern Europe, challenging traditional policing and counterinsurgency tactics.
The escalation comes as militant violence has surged across Pakistan. Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) reported a 73 percent rise in combat-related deaths in 2025, with fatalities climbing to 3,387 from 1,950 a year earlier. Militants have increasingly shifted operations from northern tribal belts to southern KP districts such as Bannu, Lakki Marwat and Dera Ismail Khan.
“Bannu is an important town of southern KP, and we are feeling the heat,” said Sajjad Khan, the region’s police chief. “There has been an enormous increase in the number of incidents of terrorism… It is a mix of local militants and Afghan militants.”
In 2025 alone, Bannu police recorded 134 attacks on stations, checkpoints and personnel. At least 27 police officers were killed, while authorities say 53 militants died in the clashes. Many assaults involved coordinated, multi-pronged attacks using heavy weapons.
Drones have also added a new layer of danger. What began as reconnaissance tools have been weaponized with improvised devices that rely on gravity rather than guidance systems.
“Earlier, they used to drop [explosives] in bottles. After that, they started cutting pipes for this purpose,” said Jamshed Khan, head of the regional bomb disposal unit. “Now we have encountered a new type: a pistol hand grenade.”
When dropped from above, he explained, a metal pin ignites the charge on impact.
Deputy Superintendent of Police Raza Khan, who narrowly survived a drone strike during construction at a checkpoint, described devices packed with nails, bullets and metal fragments.
“They attach a shuttlecock-like piece on top. When they drop it from a height, its direction remains straight toward the ground,” he said.
TARGETING CIVILIANS
Officials say militants’ rapid adoption of drone technology has been fueled by access to equipment on informal markets, while police procurement remains slower.
“It is easy for militants to get such things,” Sajjad Khan said. “And for us, I mean, we have to go through certain process and procedures as per rules.”
That imbalance began to shift in mid-2025, when authorities deployed electronic anti-drone systems in the region. Before that, officers relied on snipers or improvised nets strung over police compounds.
“Initially, when we did not have that anti-drone system, their strikes were effective,” the police chief said, adding that more than 300 attempted drone attacks have since been repelled or electronically disrupted. “That was a decisive moment.”
Police say militants have also targeted civilians, killing nine people in drone attacks this year, often in communities accused of cooperating with authorities. Several police stations suffered structural damage.
Bannu’s location as a gateway between Pakistan and Afghanistan has made it a security flashpoint since colonial times. But officials say the aerial dimension of the conflict has placed unprecedented strain on local forces.
For constables like Hazrat Ali, new technology offers some protection, but resolve remains central.
“Nowadays, they have ammunition and all kinds of the most modern weapons. They also have large drones,” he said. “When we fight them, we fight with our courage and determination.”
