WITH the March 31 deadline looming, we would do well to remember that not all Afghan refugees are bad. In fact, many have become family members. Some are the sons-in-law of Pakistan. Others were born here, speak our languages, and know no other home, but ours.

So, why are we treating them as if they are strangers? Why are we rounding up children, like the five-year-old Ayesha — born in Chitral to a Pakistani mother and an Afghan father — and preparing to send them to a country neither she nor her parents have ever seen?

The issue is deeply personal to me — and to many Chitralis, who, for decades, have shared not just borders, but bread and brotherhood with Afghans. Let me tell you why.

For 50 years, Chitral was cut off from the rest of Pakistan during the winter season. Before the Lowari Tunnel was built, we had no choice, but to travel through Afghanistan.

From the Najibullah era to the Russian occupation, from the Mujahideen to the Taliban, not once was our passage ever disrupted. The Afghan people — despite their own struggles — welcomed us year after year without asking for visas or passports.

So, when Afghan families fled war and instability, we in Chitral were bound to open our doors to them in return. They were tough, resilient and hardworking. They took up the most difficult jobs. I worked on a local project with Afghan labourers from Badakhshan in 1992. They brought with them the traditional tandoori ovens, which are now a staple of our bazaars, feeding long queues late into the night. Their children attend our schools. Their children speak Chitrali. Their lives are seamlessly woven into ours.

And yet, today, we are being asked to watch silently as the state gets ready to implement a blanket deportation policy without nuance, without compassion, and without considering the unique history and fabric of border communities like Chitral.

Crude policemen have already started knocking on doors. Mothers struggle to explain to terrified children why they may be forced to leave the only home they have ever known. This is not just bad policy. It is inhumane.

A more respectable and pragmatic approach is what is needed. The policy must recognise and regularise mixed families because thousands of Pakistani women married Afghan men, and their children — born in Pakistan — deserve a clear path to citizenship.

Afghan men and women who were born in Pakistan, married here, and are raising school-going children here should not be lumped together with undocumented recent arrivals.

If individuals like myself are willing to take full responsibility — financial and legal — for select refugee families, we should be allowed to do so. Guardianship models exist in other countries. Pakistan can create its own.

Besides, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government should consider allocating state land for the settlement of selected Afghan families. In Chitral alone, the Forest Department owns thousands of hectares where not a single tree has been planted since 1969.

Afghan families have already trans-formed private land in Kesu into a productive farmland. Let them do the same now on state land.

The KP chief minister’s suggestion of granting citizenship may seem a bit impulsive, but it at least acknowledges the need for a new approach. His office should now lead a nuanced review of deportation policies, particularly in the border regions.

Let us not forget that migration across the Wakhan Corridor into Chitral is nothing new. For over 70 years, Afghan families have quietly settled in Broghil and surrounding areas. Many now hold Pakistani CNICs. They live simple and peaceful lives.

Once, yak polo teams from both sides played matches that remained unnoticed by the authorities. That was the spirit of the frontier. It still exists — if we choose to honour it.

This is not a call for open borders. It is a call for open hearts — and for selective policies that are grounded in honour, history and humanity.

Let us not repay 50 years of hospitality with handcuffs. Let us not force little Ayesha into exile. We, the Chitralis, remember well our debts. It is time our government, too, remembered them.

Sirajul Mulk
Chitral

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2025