Ordered to leave.

Byline: Muneeb Ur Rahman

Where do the people belong to? The land, where they are born and raised or the land their ancestors used to live in? The answer to this simple question sometimes becomes very complex especially if you are a refugee.

For decades Pakistan has remained as a haven for escaping conflict and upheaval in Afghanistan, hosting about 5 million Afghan refugees at a time. Pakistan has been generously hosting Afghan refugees since 1980. Starting from the US-sponsored, Afghan Jihad against the former Soviet Union, with an off-and-on continued policy of allowing them a warm welcome for the past 40 years. Some refugees are registered, some are unregistered while others, through irregular channels like forgery and bribery, have become formal Pakistani citizens. However, this is not possible for every impoverished Afghan refugee as it requires a potential middleman to have a connection with high officials and is an expensive process.

After decades of hosting Afghan refugees. The Pakistani caretaker government has set November 1 as the deadline for 1.7 million undocumented Afghans to leave the country or face deportation. This is incredibly difficult...