KARACHI, June 25: The federal government has turned down the request made by the National Aliens Registration Authority (Nara) for an increase in its staff, funds, equipment and a force to assist the authority in performance of its duties.

Sources said the Nara’s management had told the federal government that it faced problems in registering illegal immigrants due to insufficient staff and absence of a dedicated force. The Nara, which is a part of the ministry of interior and narcotics control, had asked the federal government to increase its staff and provide it with equipment, including computers, for bringing improvement in its performance.

However, the government after reviewing Nara’s request, set it aside, saying it had not achieved its targets pertaining to the registration of illegal immigrants in the country. It said the Nara had only registered 31,000 adult aliens against a conservative estimate of 3.3 million in the country and about 1.8 million in Karachi alone, sources said.

They said the federal government had asked Nara to first achieve its targets of registering aliens and thereafter its demands might be considered. It has been given a task to complete registration of aliens within three years or within the period the federal government may, by notification in official gazette, fix according to the Ordinance No XXV of 2000, an ordinance amending the Foreigners Act of 1946.

There was a section in the ordinance which said the authority would establish a force of its own to locate illegal aliens, in addition to provincial task forces that were to be established to assist the authority in the performance of its duties.

Sources said the Nara officials had argued that they could not achieve their targets within the specified period as they had a shortage of staff. Although local police and the special branch had been cooperating with it in the performance of its duties, Nara should be equipped with modern equipment and more staff should be allowed as more camp offices were planned in the slum areas, where aliens largely resided.

As the Nara’s headquarters are located in Clifton — near Shireen Jinnah Colony, which is too difficult to be approached by the illegal immigrants living in various parts of the city — camp offices have been opened near shantytowns having considerable number of illegal aliens.

Sources said one camp office had been opened in Karimabad, one in the office of the defunct deputy commissioner of District West, and another one at the fisheries in West Wharf. They said different NGOs and councillors had been cooperating with Nara in creating awareness among aliens. Meetings with representatives of industrial units were also held regularly in which they were convinced to hire the illegal immigrants who had valid residence permits.

Sources said the aliens registered so far with Nara included Bengali-speaking ones, besides those hailing from China, Somalia, Burma, Turkey, South African, and other countries. They said the Nara had been looking into various options, including repatriating the aliens.

They said the Bengali-speaking aliens were not cooperating with Nara as, according to them, they had been living for the past many years in the country and had become Pakistani nationals.

Referring to the recent token hunger strike by some Bengali-speaking people in front of the Karachi Press Club, sources said Nara had asked them to produce relevant documents which they declined to. The Nara had no option but to register them as aliens.

The Nara had no objections if people who could show documents proving that they were Pakistani citizens, either from the then West or East Pakistan, claimed citizenship.

Sources said issues in registration of aliens were being politically exploited as well. Many of the Bengali-speaking people, who had manual national identity cards, had exercised their right to vote in the past elections. On scrutiny their ID cards turned out to be fake, which were cancelled.

They said the computerized data of illegal immigrants were being updated and Nara was in constant touch with the National Database Registration Authority (Nadra) to stop the illegal aliens from getting computerized identity cards.

About the aliens in Karachi, sources said most were Bengali-speaking who served as domestic servants, workers at garment factories or were associated with the fishing industry.

They said Afghan nationals were not being registered with Nara as their status was that of ‘refugees’.