Lahore, Apr 15 (PTI) The Punjab government in Pakistan has deported over 10,000 Afghan nationals since launching a crackdown against illegal foreign nationals on April 1, police said on Tuesday.

The government led by Maryam Nawaz Sharif first detained these Afghans, including women and children, from about 150 Afghan colonies after the deadline for their voluntary return expired on March 31, Punjab Inspector General Usman Anwar said.

He said the illegal Afghans were first moved to detention centres from where they were deported to Afghanistan.

“As part of the ongoing campaign to evict foreign nationals residing illegally in Punjab, the government has so far deported over 10,000 undocumented Afghan nationals from across the province,” Anwar said.

He said a good number of Afghans residing illegally in Punjab had left voluntarily.

Anwar further said police had a complete record of the Afghan nationals living in Punjab which helped the law enforcement agencies to reach the illegal foreigners.

“The federal government and intelligence agencies are monitoring the deportation campaign,” he added.

The intelligence agencies have identified 100,000 Afghans living illegally in Punjab, he said.

The detained Afghans, however, 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 our belongings at throwaway prices here and packed up our businesses in haste, leaving us in loss of millions of rupees,” Asghar Khan, an Afghan national who along with his family members got the marching order to leave Pakistan, told PTI.

He said the police were raiding their houses across the province and bundling up the Afghan families in vehicles like criminals.

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

However, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government led by former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party reportedly refused to deport Afghan nationals.

This province has the highest number of Afghan nationals. PTI MZ PY PY