Peshawar: Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has slammed Pakistan for its “repressive” move to expel Afghan refugees, saying it reflects the “anti-Afghan” mindset of the State institutions of this country.
The Islamist organisation said that on the pretext of expelling Afghan refugees, Pakistani forces have been harassing Pakistani tribal Afghans and Pashtuns living for centuries in Sindh and Punjab Provinces.
It also blasted Pakistan for suspending the visa-free travel for Pashtuns across the “imaginary” border with Afghanistan represented by the Durand Line and said it amounts to “stabbing the Afghan nation in the chest”.
It invited support from the “subjugated” people of “Pashtun and Baloch nations” to “get rid of the “anti-Afghan and anti-Baloch goons”, a reference to the Pakistani forces.
Pakistan is in the process of expelling over 1.5 million Afghan refugees who had fled their country in 1970s and 1980s after Soviet invasion. Some of them had fled after the American invasion which started in December 2001 after the 9/11 attacks.
Pakistan gave a month’s notice, setting October 31 as the deadline for so many people to leave the country.
So far, some 50,000 people have been evicted under the move which has angered Afghanistan’s regime, the Taliban.
“Due to the cruel decision of expelling Afghan refugees, the State of Pakistan has unleashed wolves dressed in khaki and black uniforms on the properties of Afghan refugees,” said Muhammad Khurasani, the spokesman of TTP which is ideologically linked to the Afghan Taliban.
Elaborating on the cruelty by Pakistani forces, he said the Afghan refugees, even while being evicted, were robbed despite having valid legal documents.
Khurasani, in a statement, said “some State rogues” of Pakistan were indulging in destroying the properties of the Afghans.
“The actions of the (Pakistani) State institutions are a testimony of their anti-Afghan mindset which they have inherited from their British and American masters,” the TTP spokesman said.
“But in this abominable role, these State institutions, bound in the chains of back-to-back slavery, will remain unsuccessful and helpless like their defeated ‘Firangi’ (foreigner) masters,” he said.
“On this occasion, we request the forced and subjugated nations living in Pakistan, especially the Baloch and Pashtun nations, that if they notice any government and non-government person harassing the refugees or usurping their property, they should cooperate with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan to fulfill their moral and ethical duty in notifying such persons,” he said.
“The names of the informants will be kept confidential,” the spokesman promised.
He also invited to the TTP fold those people who want to “get rid of these anti-Islam State usurpers and anti-Afghan and anti-Baloch goons.”
