KABUL (SW) – The Embassy of Pakistan in Kabul has been making visa applicants wait for months without issuing or rejecting their applications, said a number of complainants.
A number of citizens have complained that they applied to the Pakistani embassy about three months ago for a visa, but they have not yet received any response from the embassy.
They accuse the Pakistani embassy in Kabul of taking Afghan citizens hostage and say that lack of communication and knowledge has led the embassy to not respond to them, even though they have paid the required amount of visa fee.
Habib, one such visa applicant, said: “I applied for a visa almost four months back, but I am still waiting, they do not grant or refuse visas, they have taken people as ‘hostage’. They get money, but they do not issue visas. Many of the applicants have patients and old people waiting”.
Meanwhile, the owners of a number of travel companies in Kabul have also confirmed that the Pakistani visa applicants who have pre-registered with them have not received a response from the Pakistani embassy for the past three months.
The owners of these companies say that the price of Pakistani visas on the black market has risen unprecedentedly. According to them, a health visa now costs $ 600, a business visa $ 350 and a family visa $ 450 while the normal Pakistani visas used to cost around $ 8 only.
But, Bilal Karimi, a deputy spokesman for the Islamic Emirate, said no such issue or case has been reported so far.
We also wanted to have the views of the officials of the Pakistani embassy in Kabul in this regard, but after two days of messages and calls, they did not answer our calls.
It is worth mentioning that with the rise to power of the Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan, many embassies in Kabul ceased operations. With the closure of these embassies, the number of visa applicants for the neighboring countries has suddenly increased.
ENDS
