Afghan nationals buying properties in Murree amid terror concerns

ISLAMABAD: Amid a nationwide wave of terror incidents and a crackdown against illegal Afghan migrants, an alarming trend has emerged in country’s hilly resort Murree, where a large number of Afghan nationals are buying and renting property after getting computerized national identity cards (CNICs) from National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra).
According to documents available with The News, Afghan nationals have recently bought property in predominantly two union councils of Murree, which is considered one of the country’s famous tourist resorts. The experts believe that relatively peaceful hill station has become vulnerable as it is bordering the terror-hit province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The Assistant Commissioner Murree Tahir Farooq has confirmed that the civil and military authorities have also taken notice of the situation and measures are in place to monitor the property transaction in the area.
The Nadra record shows these Afghan nationals were issued CNIC but now they are in suspect category owing to their Afghan background, yet they have managed to buy property as recently as 19th of January 2015.
Interestingly, while the CNIC’s of all other family members have been blocked by Nadra, the head of family is allowed to use Nadra’s CNIC and even buy property on the same card.The documents show that Afghan national Sahab Din bought land in Greenland state near Lawrence College Murree on 19 January 2015 showing himself resident of Pindi Point Murree. He registered the transaction with his original CNIC number 37404-0252900-5.
According to Nadra record, the CNIC of Sahab Din is still valid until 2016 while the CNICs of his sons Awal Khan, Azmat Amar Khan, Attaullah and Habibullah has been blocked by Nadra.When contacted by The News a Nadra official admitted that it was a “mistake” of the authority to issue CNICs to Afghan national Sahab Din and his entire family but he claimed that the authority has rectified the mistake by blocking the CNICs of his family members.
“The CNICs were issued to these persons by Nadra during its initial days when the data was not centralised. Now the authority has a centralised data and the margin of error is minimal,” the Nadra official said. He said the CNIC of Sahb Din would also be blocked as soon as he will apply for the renewal of the card after its expiry in 2016.
However sources said there are scores of other Afghan nationals who are using Nadra CNICs in Murree and other parts of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.When contacted by The News, AC Murree said the property sale to suspect Afghan nationals cannot be stopped as long as they have valid Pakistani documents. He said it is hard to tell who is Afghan national and who is a Pakistani resident of KP if both have Nadra cards.
“I cannot say anything about Afghan nationals but I can confirm that a large number of KP residents have recently started buying property in Murree especially in two union councils of Charihan and Patriata,” he said.
He said the administration has recently launched campaign to document the property transactions and business in Murree over security concerns.“Under the national action plan (NAP) against terrorism, we have constituted a Joint Operation Cell (JOC) in Murree comprising civil and military authorities to implement the key points of the NAP,” he said.
Farooq said the JOC is scrutinising the properties being purchased by people with KP domicile and even rented properties are being documented to ensure that the law enforcing agencies have the complete data base about the transactions.
“According to our data base so far 120 property transactions have taken place involving KP domiciled people in the period between 2012 to 2014,” he said adding that it is not illegal for KP residents to purchase property in Murree but the authorities want to be in the loop over the activity in view of the security concerns.
“Under the national action plan (NAP) against terrorism, we have constituted a Joint Operation Cell (JOC) in Murree comprising civil and military authorities to implement the key points of the NAP”.