Punjab caretaker Information Minister Amir Mir on Friday revealed that approximately 33,000 people were identified through mapping as illegal residents lacking proper legal documentation and were now slated for deportation.
The provincial minister’s statement coincides with the government’s approaching October 31 deadline for illegal residents to depart from Pakistan.
Addressing a press conference here, Mir said that prior to the Oct 31 deadline, “as many as 99,000 illegal foreign residents were detained in Pakistan and 33,000 of them were found to be completely lacking any documents and staying illegally in Pakistan after their identification through mapping,” adding that they would be deported.
The provincial information minister said this figure would continue to increase as mapping was carried out on a daily basis.
He explained that the federal government had allocated Friday and Saturday to Punjab for deportation, and other provinces were assigned different days for the purpose. He also noted that the Punjab cabinet had presented the operational plan for deportation.
Mir said the identified illegal residents were currently being held in designated holding areas with 36 points within Punjab. “Efforts are in progress to ascertain which of these individuals will be repatriated from which particular border areas,” he added.
