Bengali, Afghan refugees to get ID cards, passports in Pakistan

The Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan has announced that the government will issue national identity cards and passports to immigrants from Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

He announced this while addressing a fundraising event for dam construction during his first official visit to Karachi on Sunday.

The PM said that the identity crisis of thousands of Bengali and Afghan immigrants is pushing them to crime.

“Terrorism and target killing has declined in Karachi but there is a major reason behind the street crimes. It is an underclass. They are illiterate and jobless. They are the Bengalis and Afghans who are living in Pakistan.”

“These immigrants have lived here for decades, their children were born here, but they don't have identity cards and passports,” he said.

The people of this deprived class can’t get jobs without ID cards and passports, so our government has decided to issue them computerised national identity cards and passports, Khan said.

There are around two million Bengali and Burmese migrants in Pakistan. They either do not possess ID cards or their cards have been revoked on suspicion of being illegal immigrants.

Pakistan also hosts 1.5million registered Afghan refugees in different provinces and Azad Kashmir.

Source: Samaa TV