'Judaism': Pakistan issues fresh passport to its Jewish citizen

KARACHI: Fishel Khalid, 31, who has declared himself as a 'Jew' has been issued a fresh passport by the Pakistani authorities, which mentioned his religion as 'Judaism', BBC Urdu reported.

According to the report, Khalid was in contact with NADRA since 2016 to get himself registered as a Jew and after a long battle his claim was admitted by the government.

“Although I was registered as a Muslim at birth, but I told NADRA that I am not a practicing Muslim and provided them all the details and documents they asked for in order to cross check my information,” he told BBC.

A news story in this newspaper, reported Thursday that Khalid has been permitted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to travel Israel on the Pakistani passport, which is otherwise not possible due to an official ban.

He will be the first person in public knowledge allowed to travel Israel on official documents.

Khalid told BBC that he requested Prime Minister Imran Khan last October through ‘Pakistan Citizen Portal’ that he wanted to go Israel on his passport.

The PM Office then forwarded the request to the Foreign Office which sough Sindh government’s input and after getting opinion from all the stakeholders, Khalid was informed that he can request for Israeli visa on the Pakistani passport.