Islamabad: Pakistan has detected and blocked well over 86.000 fake computerised national identity cards (CNICs) over the past six months, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said on Friday.
The action was the result of a campaign conducted by the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) to re-verify identity cards, the minister told a news conference.
The minister said a total of 4, 50,000 CNICs and 32,400 passports had been blocked during the tenure of the present government, which had taken up the reins after the general election in June 2013.
Chaudhry Nisar said that proactive efforts were being exerted to restore blocked CNICs of those who proved that they had valid documents.
He announced that an 18-member parliamentary committee would oversee the verification process of CNICs and NADRA would brief the panel on weekly basis on order to take decisions promptly.
The Interior Minister said that no concrete steps were taken during the tenure of the previous government to weed out fake CNICs and passports.
He said that there was no verification process before 2011 and identify cards were issued to foreigners and were used in human trafficking, terrorism and other illegal activities that defamed Pakistan in the world.
The minister said the officials of NADRA involved in issuing illegal national documents would be prosecuted.
Answering a question, he said that the committee probing a news report published in October concerning the deliberations of a high-level meeting on national security matters presided over by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been given one more month to submit its report which will be made public.
The news report, quoting inside sources, had stated that civilian participants in the meeting told the military to “act against militants or face international isolation.”
The government had denied the report as fabricated and the military top brass denounced it as a serious breach of national security. The then information minister Pervaiz Rashid had resigned over the report and the government set up a committee to probe the leaks.
