The Federal Government has been recently informed about the ill and malicious practices through which number of local and foreign terrorists have been able to obtain and get hold of Computerized National Identity Cards (CNICs).
On 25th May 2016, Interior Minister of Pakistan, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan proposed the notion and gave 48 hour deadline to the officials of National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) to plan a strategy to get all 180 million Pakistani re-verified following the death of Afghan Taliban Commander, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, in a US drone strike in Baluchistan where from the site a passport and ID card of Pakistani origin was discovered.
2 days later, Chaudhry Nisar announced that anyone with fake CNIC would be prisoned up to 7 years and the officials helping such individuals would be jailed for 14 years. He also showed some leniency as he asked defaulters to surrender their fake CNIC within two months otherwise they will have to bear severe consequences.
Members of NADRA and Intelligence Agencies informed Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar that Afghan nationals, some of whom worked with Indian Intelligence Agencies, have been issued fake national ID cards. This is an alarming situation and as Chaudhry Nisar also that the security of the country has been compromised to a great extent.
Even though Interior Minister of Pakistan did not disclose any specific details about the cases, a senior official, said that they had identified and Afghan national, Khalil Gul, who successfully bribed NADRA officials to attain CNIC. Senior official was also present during a recent closed-door meeting.
In a document that was presented to Interior Minister, Khalil Gul was exposed by the security agencies after discovering his relationship with another Afghan national, Khawaja Noor, who also bribed NADRA officials to get hold of fake CNIC. It was also learnt that both these Afghan nationals were linked with a covert Indian intelligence operation that was being functioned from the Indian Embassy in Doha, Qatar.
Apart from owning one fake CNIC, 17 other ID cards were discovered from Khalil Gul’s possessions which were seemingly on the names of his family members. When the security forces probed the cards and tried to confirm the authenticity of those cards, they were left in shock when the addresses listed on those cards were fake.
The senior official who attended the high-level meeting stated:
“These and other similar stories were shared with the interior minister in a bid to inform him about the gravity of the situation”
Some of the other documents also showed that intelligence officials had written to NADRA about CNICs being sold to foreigners in places like Karachi, Lahore, Dera Ismail Khan for bribes of Rs. 10,000/- to Rs. 20,000/-.
Amidst all this, a senior NADRA official made sure that individual with malicious intentions would be dealt severely. He said that:
“A fact finding body has been formed to ascertain which staffers were involved in the heinous crime of selling national identity cards to foreign spooks”
National security agencies and forces along with the assistance from NADRA have been quite proactive ever since Chaudhry Nisar’s re-verifying to 180 CNICs statement on 25th May 2016.
Image credit: dawn.com
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
