Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has said pledged to offer citizenship to Pakistan-born refugees of Bangladeshi origin, reported local media.
The Express Tribune says that his announcement came on Sunday at a fundraising event for dam construction in Karachi.
The report quoted Khan saying that all Pakistan-born refugees of Bangladeshi and Afghan origins will get National Identity Cards (NICs) and passports.
Identity crisis of thousands of Bengali and Afghan immigrants is pushing them to crime, the Pakistani PM was quoted by the report.
“Terrorism and target killing has declined in Karachi but there is a major reason behind the street crimes. It is an underclass. They are illiterate and jobless. They are the Bengalis and Afghans who are living in Pakistan. These immigrants have lived here for decades, their children were born here, but they don't have identity cards and passports,” he said.
“The people of this deprived class can’t get jobs without ID cards and passports, so our government has decided to issue them computerised national identity cards and passports,” Khan added.
Pakistan has the largest refugee population in the world. The United Nations refugee agency and local officials said that there are 2.7 million Afghans, including 1.5 million registered as refugees, in Pakistan.
According to Pakistani media outlets and local sources, there are around two million Bengali and Burmese migrants in Pakistan. They either do not possess ID cards or their cards have been revoked on suspicion of being illegal immigrants.