62,650 intruders identified in Nadra data

Islamabad

The National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) in its pursuit against foreigners, particularly Afghan nationals, has identified 62,650 intruders who have been registered as Pakistani citizens, ‘The News’ has learnt.

Nadra, on the orders of Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, is re-verifying all the 105 million computerised national identity cards (CNICs) issued so far by the authority and it has to complete the task by December 31, 2016. The move came in the wake of disclosures that slain Taliban chief Mullah Mansoor was a registered Pakistani national.

National re-verification programme started on July 1 which will continue till December 31 and, according to sources, Nadra has verified around 91.23 million CNICs so far during the re-verification drive.

During the campaign around 62,650 intruders have been identified out of them around 13,400 have been sent to intelligence agencies for the verification of their nationality and around 42,800 have been marked suspect which will be verified by respective zonal ADs of Nadra. So far around 2,550 aliens have voluntarily surrendered their Pakistani CNICs acquired through illegal means. Moreover 98 persons have so far have helped Nadra in identification of aliens in its database who will be rewarded subsequently. 

Well-placed sources in the Ministry of Interior told this correspondent that ever since Nadra has introduced SMS service asking people to report if there was any intruder in their family, the authority has received 5.586 million SMS by citizens while some 9.8 million SMS have been pushed to the citizens.

The sources said that 245,880 people have informed the authority that there was an intruder in their family upon which 231,000 calls were placed and 186,247 cases were successfully settled while some 62,650 intruders have been identified.

The sources said that the out of the 5.585 million SMS and 120,000 calls on helpline, only 3,900 false cases have been reported. The sources said that in some cases, people had hidden their second marriages and their scions/ spouses reported extra members in the family tree. “In some cases, nephews, nieces and cousins are registered under one family head name but all of them are Pakistanis”, the sources mentioned.

All the CNICs will be re-verified and doubtful will be sent to regional offices and agencies for further scrutiny and after satisfaction of being alien, the CNIC will be blocked. In the past three years, Nadra has blocked some 29,000 illegal, fake and dubious CNICs.

“We will target 25 million family trees (comprising 105 million CNICs holders) during the re-verification process and it is not an easy task. Fake cards were issued after inserting the names of illegal persons in family trees”, the Nadra sources said. If any official is found involved in any irregularity, he would not only face dismissal but also 14 years imprisonment under the law. And, fake cards or passports hiders would face seven years imprisonment.

Besides this, the sources said, Nadra has also established service centers on the orders of Chairman Usman Mobeen and now the authority processes 1,000 CNICs in a single day in twin cities as compared to 500 before the launch of state of the art service centers.

These centers are open from 8 am till 9 pm and number of seating has been increased from 25 persons to 350 persons at a center and the applicants are saved from standing in queues for longer hours by the introduction of Electronic Queue Management System and are dealt on the basis of first-come-first-served approach, hence eliminating the factor of out of turn processing. Entrance and exit time has been reduced from 3 hours to less than 1 hour (average) per applicant. Nadra is likely to open two new Service Centers at Karachi in December this year.