ISLAMABAD Deeply concerned with the apathetic attitude of the Government, some diplomatic missions have sought the Interior Ministrys cooperation regarding the details of their countrymen unlawfully residing here, but to no avail. It is reliably learnt that four foreign missions; two from Central Asian and Eastern European origin each, have formally taken up the matter with the Interior Ministry to obtain the record of the exact number of the expatriates from the concerning states dispersed across Pakistan. During several meetings with this scribe, the diplomats of as many as five diplomatic missions have raised concerns about Pakistani Governments attitude and slammed the Interior Ministrys role in this regard. The diplomatic missions also reported that instead of taking to task the illegal immigrants, the security agencies had started harassing finically prosperous Pakistan-based foreign nationals particularly from Central Asia, Russia, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Iran, and Afghanistan. Some Pakistani-based foreigners families subjected to harassment reported that they had been harassed due to 'monetary reasons as they run businesses here and come from well-to-do class. The security officials have begun to keep a 'watchful eye on them for getting their 'due shares. It may be recalled here that Interior Minister Rehman Malik had given months deadline to illegal immigrants for their eviction, on January 22 this year. The deadline expired on February 22, and the Minister extended it further for indefinite time period. Instead of taking to task the illegal dwellers, who are neither registered nor carry any legal grounds for their stay in Pakistan, the security agencies are now targeting potentially well off Pakistani-based foreigners families only to gobble bribes. Recently, Pakistani-Bangladeshis had called a convention in Karachi to mark their protests against the highhandedness of the Customs and Federal Investigations Agency (FIA) officials in Karachi. Apart from that, instead of encouraging registration of Afghan immigrants that have the highest number (3.5 million), of all the illegal immigrants, the Government has stopped registration process since last three years. The Proof of Registration (PoR) cards centres operating in the four cities of Pakistan only work for modifications, corrections, or alterations if required, in the already issued PoR cards. After 2007, no Afghan immigrant has been issued any PoR card. The Afghan immigrants were issued these cards for a tiny period of 4 months from October 2006 to February 2007. While 1.7 million Afghan refugees got themselves registered, others have no alternative but to illegally reside here since only registered immigrants can leave for Afghanistan as per the Tripartite Agreement on Voluntary Repatriation signed among Pakistan, Afghanistan and UNHCR. It is also noteworthy that earlier in last December, the Government had allocated a piece of land for 3000 registered Afghans, at the outskirts of the Capital near Motorways. By the end of the same month, the said number of Afghans had been settled in the allocated land. But in the months that followed, illegal immigrants kept moving to the area due to their close ties with registered Afghan inhabitants. This inter-mingling, that subsequently took place due to the inefficiency of the law enforcement authorities, has made it increasingly difficult for the civic authorities to expel or track down the illegal Afghans, after the passage of only three months. Despite efforts, official version of the Interior Ministry could not be received due to the absence of the Ministrys official spokesperson. After the transference of Rashid Mazari, the Ministrys former spokesman, new spokesperson has not been appointed while Federal Minister Rehman Malik did not respond to calls at his personal numbers on Tuesday.