Islamabad, Pakistan: Mohammad Laal Khan only has a known home there. He was born here. He got married here. Here, his children were born. He buried his eldest brother here.
However, a late-night police raid in November of last year shattered his sense of belonging.
After his parents fled the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Khan was born in a tribal district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s South Waziristan. Since the 1990s, the family — including Khan’s mother, four brothers, their families, and other relatives — has lived in the suburbs of Pakistan’s capital Islamabad in mud-plastered houses without electricity or other basic utilities.
He is currently being deported to Pakistan.
On a recent March afternoon, Khan, 36, claimed that he had threatened to kill all the men in the same room where dozens of police officers had stormed in and that being an Afghan was a curse upon our existence.
Khan says, despite much pleading, four of his brothers were taken away and charged with living in the country “illegally”. After two weeks, a court imposed bail on them, which they ultimately oversaw.
Afghan Citizenship Cards (ACC), an approved form of identification issued to Afghan citizens living in Pakistan, are the property of the entire family. But over the past two years, between September 2023 and February 2025, a systemic government crackdown on Afghan nationals has resulted in the expulsion of nearly 850, 000 Afghans from Pakistan, including women and children.
After spending almost their entire lives in Pakistan, hundreds of thousands of Afghans who belong to the ACC are now facing expulsion on April 1.
“We are completely ignorant of Afghanistan.” We have lived here all our lives, made friends here, built our businesses here. We will leave if the government wants to throw us out, but we’ll do it once more, Khan said.
“This is our home,” the statement read.
Pakistan’s deportation plan
According to estimates from the government, Pakistan currently has more than 2.5 million Afghans.
About 1.3 million of them hold an ACC, which was first issued in 2006 and was first issued by the UNHCR, while 800, 000 others hold one, which was issued in 2017.
These documents were previously recognised as proof of legitimate residence in Pakistan.
No longer at all.
A three-phase “relocation” plan was laid out in a two-page document released in January by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s office.
The first phase targets the deportation of all Afghans now viewed as undocumented — including ACC holders. The second phase focuses on PoR cardholders, who have been granted temporary stay until June 2025. Afghan nationals who are awaiting relocation to third countries will be addressed in the final phase.
Minister of State for Interior Talal Chaudhry said the government was firm in its stance, despite pleas from the UNHCR and global rights organisations such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International.
“Our hospitality and generosity have been shown to Afghans in the country for four decades, but it cannot continue indefinitely.” He told Al Jazeera, “They will have to return.”
With the start of this new wave of deportations slated for around Eid — Pakistan celebrates the otherwise festive occasion on March 31 — the deadline has prompted criticism. Many view it as an attempt to unfairly demonize Afghan citizens by relating their involvement in criminal activity.
Islamabad claims that Afghanistan is the site of a number of deadly attacks by armed groups in recent years. This has also led to a spike in tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers.
In a statement released on March 19, HRW’s Asia director Elaine Pearson said, “Pakistani officials should stop coercing Afghans to return home and give those facing expulsion the opportunity to seek protection.”
Amnesty International urged Pakistan to reconsider its decision, calling the deadline “unyielding and cruel”.
“These opaque executive orders contravene the government’s own promises and repeated calls by human rights organizations to uphold the rights of Afghan refugees and asylum seekers”, said Isabelle Lassee, deputy regional director for South Asia at Amnesty International, in a March 26 statement.
However, Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has insisted that the government had “fulfilled its obligations” by welcoming Afghans and was not required to consult with the UNHCR in response to Chaudhry’s sentiments.
However, the UNHCR’s spokesperson, Qaiser Afridi, expressed concern that some of the ACC holders might require international protection.
“We are urging the government to see their situation through a humanitarian lens. Additionally, Afridi told Al Jazeera, “We call for engagement between Pakistan and Afghanistan to ensure their return can be honorable and voluntary.”
That alone, according to Afridi, would make “reintegration in Afghanistan sustainable.”
Why are we being pushed away, you ask?
Khan’s family moved to Islamabad in the early 1990s and has resided there ever since.
Khan’s room has rough, mud-plastered walls enclosing a modest space with folded mattresses, a simple rug, and a few personal belongings.
Guldana Bibi, 71, Khan’s mother, had a wrinkled face, deep-set hazel eyes, and a scarf covering her head. She was quietly seated in the room.
“For the past four decades, I have resided here.” My children, my grandchildren, were all born here. My last connection to Afghanistan was with my husband, who passed away years ago. Why are we being “pushed away”? she said.
In response to the government’s crackdowns on Afghans, Khan and his brothers co-founded a wood shuttering company. However, twice in the past ten years, in 2015 and 2023, they were forced to stop working and sell what they had in their stores. Khan claims that he lost close to 1.8 million rupees ($6, 400) due to currency fluctuations.
“People ask why we haven’t done better economically. How can you live if your life is constantly rearranged or you are made to pay bribes to live? Khan said while his arms were folded, standing cross-legged.
“Pakistan and Afghanistan are neighbours. That will never change. However, neither hating one person nor returning people will work.
‘ This cafe is my life ‘
Benazir Raofi sat roughly 10 kilometers (6 miles) away from customers in a dimly lit, colorfully decorated cafe. She has 35 years of residence in Pakistan.
Raofi’s family left the country when the Soviet withdrawal caused a civil war to break out in her country because her father was a member of the Afghan government. She was prevented while her parents and seven siblings were able to travel to India. She was forced to stay back in Afghanistan.
I was only twelve years old. Before we eventually moved to Pakistan in December 1990, my uncle took care of me, Raofi told Al Jazeera.
Raofi says it is the Pakistani people who give her hope. She worked as a local travel agent and for international NGOs before becoming ACC in 2017.
Before the Taliban took control of Kabul, she received a grant for a project for her idea to build an Afghan Women Solidarity Cafe and Restaurant in the summer of that year.
The walls of the vibrant, but cluttered cafe are adorned with framed certificates, small decorative objects, and artificial vines with flowers. A large image of the historic, three-story palace Darul Aman can be seen on one of the walls.
Afghanis are recalled to the cafe by Raofi, who smiled and said, “When they come in, it reminds them of home.” “I just wanted to provide a space for families, but after the fall of Kabul, my café became a sanctuary for so many Afghans. She continued, “It allowed me to contribute to the community and allow me to earn an honest living.”
She now worries about what the government might do to ACC members like her, though.
She said, “I am a single woman, and I am who I am because regular, regular Pakistanis have supported, protected, and nurtured me,” while sipping her kahva, a hot drink made with cardamom and green tea leaves.
Raofi, who still runs the cafe, claims that despite facing health-related setbacks and even theft two years ago, she never felt bothered or concerned about the government’s deportation plan.
Until this year.
“I’ve been told by the police that I can’t work here and that I should leave the city after they have visited my cafe twice since January. Why should I, then? This city is my home for the last 30 years. She said, “This cafe is my life.”
Raofi acknowledges that she has no backup plan in case the deportation deadline approaches.
Leave a Reply