Lahore, Apr 7 (PTI) Pakistan's Punjab government has detained over 5,000 Afghan nationals from different parts of the province to deport them to their home country.

"The Maryam Nawaz administration has detained over 5,000 Afghans from 150 Afghan colonies in Punjab so far after the deadline of volunteer return (of Afghan refugees) expired on March 31," a Punjab government official said on Monday.

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The detained Afghans, including 2,300 children and 1,100 women, have been transported to the transit camps across the province for repatriation/deportation.

The security agencies have identified 100,000 Afghans living illegally in Punjab, the official said, adding that they will be traced and deported soon. He said the Afghans with valid legal documents will not be deported.

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On the other hand, the detained Afghans have expressed dissatisfaction with the Pakistani government's sudden order to deport them.

"We are peaceful and law-abiding people but paying the price of being Afghans. We sold all their belongings at throwaway prices here and packed up our businesses in haste, which left us in a loss worth millions of rupees," said Asghar Khan, an Afghan national who, along with his family members, got the marching order to leave Pakistan.

Similarly, hundreds of Afghan nationals have been rounded up in Sindh province and deported.

In Karachi, South Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Syed Asad Raza said that until Monday, around 350 Afghans holding Afghan Citizenship Cards (ACC), which will expire soon, or those without any documentation had been repatriated and sent to Balochistan for their onward journey home.

“Since Friday, we have rounded up more than 400 Afghan nationals without legal status to remain in Pakistan and they were placed in a holding camp,” he said.

Karachi is believed to have the largest concentration of legal and illegal Afghan nationals in Pakistan.

However, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government of Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) reportedly has refused to deport Afghan nationals. This province has the most Afghan nationals.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)