First biometrics system installed at border crossing with Afghanistan

Chaman, Pakistan: Pakistan yesterday opened its first biometrics system to screen travellers at a land border point with Afghanis-tan as a measure to curtail cross-border movement of militants, an official said.

The sophisticated identification system was inaugurated at the main border crossing between southern Afghanistan and Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, near the Pakistani town of Chaman, said Brigadier Akhtar Hussain Shah, an official with the government National Data and Registration Authority that issues identity cards to Pakistani nationals.

After it was inaugurated, some 40 people were screened through the system that records a person's fingerprints, retinas or facial patterns, for identification, Shah said.

Pakistani authorities will issue biometrics compatible "border passes" to residents of Chaman and the surrounding Qila Abdullah district, to help them travel to Afghanistan after being identified through the system, he said. Shah said the new measure at the border crossing near Chaman was an effort in the fight against terrorism. "This is a step that we have taken to stop terrorism and to stop any illegal movement," he said.

Ethnic Pashtun tribesmen in Pakistan and Afghanistan, living close to the Pakistan-Afghan border, are allowed to travel across the frontier without passports but with special identity permits under an arrangement between the two countries to help members of the divided tribes visit each other.

The border runs through mountains, deserts and is not clearly demarcated at places where it splits tribespeople.