Pubdate: Tue, 28 Aug 2001
Source: Times of Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan)
Copyright: 2001 The Times of Central Asia
Contact:  http://www.times.kg/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1202

LOCKED-UP AFGHANS LURED BY DRUG MAFIA

PESHAWAR. Majority of Afghans languishing in different prisons of 
NWFP has been arrested on charges of drug smuggling.

These imprisoned people, in search of a better future, were entrapped 
by the Drug Mafia to carry out this heinous business.

This astounding revelation was made by Lal Gul, Chairman Afghan 
Commission for Human Rights while talking to The Frontier Post on 
Sunday.

He said that this information is based on a survey conducted by Free 
Legal Aid Centre.

He said that so far he had visited several jails of the province 
including Peshawar, Attock, Nowshera, Mardan, Swabi and Charsadda 
jails where a total of 442 Afghan refugees have been locked up.

These Afghan prisoners include old, young and minors as well as women.

Lal Gul further said that the drug barons after giving jobs handed 
them over responsibilities to take the drugs to some destinations at 
Rawalpindi or Lahore.

He said that most of the children and women detained in these jails 
had lost their fathers and husbands during the Afghan jihad and they 
had to look after their families.

Finding no other way to earn livelihood for their families, they out 
of compulsion had to adopt this unlawful way to have their both ends 
meet, Lal Gul maintained.

Some of these detainees belong to Nasir Bagh refugee camp where their 
families live for the sake of their imprisoned relatives.

If they were freed, the survey noted, their families would 
voluntarily shift to Afghanistan.

Highlighting the raison d'etre of the survey by the Legal Aid Centre, 
chairman of the Afghanistan Commission for Human Rights said that 
during the Afghan jihad, jihadi groups had established peace 
committees in their camps and offices aimed at both monitoring the 
dubious activities of the Afghan refugees and solving their problems.

But when the activities of these jihadi groups ceased, there existed 
no proper forum to address to the refugees' problems.

So this centre was established to take care of the imprisoned Afghan 
refugees by collecting information and making arrangements for their 
release.

The Legal Aid Centre has so far got released 16 children from Attock 
Jail and one from Peshawar Jail, Lal Gul remarked.

Lamenting the role of UNHCR in alleviating the problems of refugees, 
he said this body has done nothing towards the detained Afghan 
refugees in Pakistani jails.

Giving suggestions towards the solution of the problems faced by the 
imprisoned Afghan refugees, Lal Gul said that if the elders and elite 
living in the refugee camps were given the right to act as guarantor, 
the plight of the locked up refugees could be minimised.

He further said that these poor Afghan prisoners could neither afford 
services of lawyers to defend themselves in a court of law nor 
arrange guarantors from among Pakistanis as the court do not accept 
guarantee of other nationals.
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