‘CNIC condition must be abolished for stateless people to get free rations’

Appreciating the Sindh government for its timely efforts to limit the spread of coronavirus, prominent rights activist Nagham Iqtidar on Thursday demanded of the government to devise a strategy to give free rations to the Biharis, Bengalis, Afghans and Rohingyas living in various parts of the city, who are also badly affected by the ongoing lockdown.

Iqtidar, who recently visited Jacob Lines and Machar Colony to observe relief distribution among stateless people, said that the government had only been distributing rations and relief goods to those who had a CNIC.

“The restriction of the documents imposed by Nadra [National Database Registration Authority] in providing the CNIC to the Pakistani national is creating problems for Biharis or those stranded Pakistanis who migrated to Pakistan after the fall of Dhaka, Bengalis, Rohingyas, and Afghan refugees,” she said. Most of them live in Karachi.

“All of these communities have been living in Pakistan for more than four decades, but in the recent coronavirus crisis, they have been deprived of the opportunity to receive government ration because of the CNIC condition,” said Iqtidar, who is a member of several rights bodies.

She said that the federal and provincial authorities should withdraw its condition of the CNIC for the stateless people on humanitarian grounds and distribute rations among them on a priority basis. “It is a serious human right violation and will create a bad image of the country, particularly the Sindh government, if the human lives are lost due to hunger,” she said.