03 January 2004	Saturday	10 Ziqa'ad 1424

PESHAWAR, Jan 2: The National Database and Registration Authority has refused to withdraw cases against the councillors allegedly involved in attesting application forms of aliens for computerized national identity cards.

A Nadra spokesman said in a statement issued on Friday that cases were lodged against those public representatives who were knowingly or unknowingly involved in attestation of false forms of aliens.

It termed the protest of the councillors on the issue meaningless and urged them to cooperate in the preparation of a computerized database of the nationals.

The members of the district council had decided not to attest the application forms in protest against the lodging of cases. The councillors were asked to attest the application forms after making sure that the applicant was a Pakistani national, the spokesman said.

The councillors were attesting the forms without checking the identity of the applicants, which had rendered the process of making a database of Pakistani nationals useless, he said.

The attestation of aliens' forms was a crime under the Nadra Act and the person attesting the form should personally know the applicant, but the provision was violated and cases were lodged against those involved who attested the forms of foreigners, mostly Afghans, he said.