Bilawal, Imran’s statements disappoint Nisar

ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Tuesday expressed disappointment over the statements of the PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan, saying that Bilawal’s mentors are also short of morality.

“What sort of message are Imran Khan and Bilawal giving to the nation through their statements? Is there no morality left in the politics of the country?” he asked while talking to media persons here on Tuesday after attending a high-level meeting of the Interior Ministry.

Commenting on the statement of Bilawal, the minister said that the mentors of Bilawal should realise what sort of message they were giving to the children. “What loss will happen if they avoid giving statements at this time,” he said.

Earlier, the meeting chaired by Chaudhry Nisar decided to form a five-layer strategy to take on people having fake computerised national identity computerised national identity cards (CNICs).

The minister was briefed by Nadra officials on the strategy to contain fake CNICs and different options came under discussion during meeting. Nisar said fake CNICs issue is not limited to Pakistan, adding that this phenomenon has its roots all over the world. He said Pakistan has been facing the brunt of Afghan refugees since last four decades and three to four million Afghan refugees, including refugees sheltered in Pakistan, are a major challenge for Pakistan. He said the previous regimes in Pakistan demonstrated least interest in tackling challenges relating to Afghan refugees in Pakistan but during last three years, 240,000 fake CNICs have been blocked. The minister said 29,000 passports have also been blacklisted and coordination between Nadra and passport department has been interlinked and with cancellation of CNIC of any person, his passport will automatically be blacklisted.

Nisar said that thousands of CNICs were issued during the previous regimes, and even majority of suspected CNICs were renewed before 2013. He said re-verification of millions of CNICs is not an easy task, and for this process, he needs collaboration from all sections of life.

“We don’t want to make people stand in queues for hours for re-verification process; therefore Nadra is devising a customer friendly strategy for re-verification of CNICs,” said Nisar, adding, “We are willing and determined to purge all sorts of fake CNICs cases within six months.”

The first two months of six-month timeline for re-verification of CNICs have been announced as impunity by inviting all people having fake CNICs and citizenship documents to withdraw their fake CNIC voluntarily, otherwise after passage of impunity time of two months, legal action will be taken and up to 14-year imprisonment will be awarded to people and their facilitators.

In second point, ‘leveraging through helpline’ will be made and a ‘national helpline’ will be made by inviting people to identify aliens having fake CNICs. In this option, information as provided by people will be put confidential and on investigation if identification was proved right, the information provided will be rewarded by Rs10,000. “The incentive option will prove very successful in identifying people residing in Pakistan on fake CNICs and citizenship documents,” said the minister.

In third point, Nadra is going to establish ‘development of complete software for national re-verification system’ and in accordance of the registration sequel, suspected aliens will be identified. Similarly, under option of ‘family intrusion detection’, an SMS will be forwarded to head of each and every family to identify that any alien fake CNIC holder has not been made part of their family.

“We are committed and determined to make an end to fake CNICs from Pakistan and in this regard any sort of wrongdoing will not be tolerated,” Nisar said. “Nothing is more important than national security, and all employees of Nadra will be motivated and rewarded in tracing out and in identification of fake CNICs holders,” he said, adding that a cohesive mechanism is on cards with assistance of security agencies and other coordinated departments to make successful this six-months timeline campaign to purge the country from fake CNIC holders.