LANDI KOTAL: The local people and traders of Landi Kotal arranged cooked food and temporary shelter for the stranded Afghans on the 12th day of the closure of borders with Afghanistan here on Tuesday.

The members of Landi Kotal Bazaar Shopkeepers Union along with some philanthropists made generous donations to arrange three-time meal for nearly 200 stranded Afghans.

The caretakers of the main mosque in Landi Kotal Bazaar had forcibly evicted the stranded Afghans from the mosque and local residents also refused to allow them to stay in their hujras (guest houses).

Nearly 500 Afghans converged at Landi Kotal early on Sunday morning when authorities at Torkham allowed 250 Afghans to cross the border as a gesture of goodwill.

However, many of them including women and children returned to Peshawar and other parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa late on Sunday after local authorities refused to allow them to cross the border.

Landi Kotal Bazaar Shopkeepers Union general secretary Amjad Khan told Dawn that the union along with some local residents pooled money to arrange cooked food for the remaining Afghans.

He said that all the stranded Afghans were lodged at an under-construction building at the bazaar while some were also invited to private homes by local people.

Dost Mohammad, a stranded Afghan, told Dawn that his visa got expired and he was unable to go to any city of Pakistan. He said that he was no exception as a number of other Afghans were also faced with the same problem.

He said that some of his countrymen fled cities in Punjab province after police launched crackdown on illegal Afghans and Pakhtuns.

Ghulam Sakhi, another Afghan, accused the local taxi drivers of depriving them of the little money they had by giving them wrong information about the reopening of border on Sunday.

He said that he along with scores of other stranded Afghans was fleeced by the taxi drivers. He said that they were then stuck in Landi Kotal with little or no money for travelling to eitherside ofthe border.

The local administration has, in the meantime, instructed Khasadar and Levies personnel posted on checkposts on border with Peshawar district not to allow Afghans to enter Khyber Agency.

The administration also advised the returning Afghans to wait till a formal announcement by the federal government about the reopening of the border.

Meanwhile, a delegation of local transporters left for Karachi to hold talks with their counterparts to devise a joint strategy about the prolonged closure of borders with Afghanistan.