PESHAWAR, Nov 22: The National Database Registration Authority has failed to get those persons convicted by courts who had attested fake application forms for the Computerized National Identity Cards (CNICs) in the province though it had lodged cases against them.

According to Nadra, some 1,798 cases were lodged against wrong attesters and those aliens who were found in possession of the CNICs. Most of the attesters, comprising councillors, government officials and nazims, had verified forms of the Afghan nationals.

In these cases, over 700 public representatives were charged with wrong attestation, but no action was initiated against them. Citing reasons of not taking action against the accused, an official said: "FIRs were lodged against those attesters and aliens using fake CNICs but no such accused person has yet been convicted by the concerned court."

When Nadra lodged cases against those attesters, many of the councillors raised the matter in the district council session and protested against the Nadra move.

The attestation of an alien's forms is a crime under the Nadra Act. The person attesting such a form is required to personally know the applicant but the act was violated as some 1,085 Afghan nationals were detected either with fake forms or the CNICs.

"Cases were registered but not a single person charged with attestation of the application forms of aliens has been tried by the court and because of the delay the problem is still prevailing," sources said.

Under these circumstances, sources said, what Nadra could do is to block the data of aliens, mostly Afghan nationals who had acquired the Pakistani computerised ID cards.

Official sources said that Nadra had conducted training workshops and seminars for public representatives to educate them on the verification process but even then many had violated the concerned provision of the Nadra act.

The sources said that Nadra Village Representatives who were assigned to fill in the forms of illiterate villagers also worked carelessly and made wrong entries. To compensate for the mistakes, Nadra chairman Salim Ahmad Moeen has directed his staff to correct and issue new CNICs without charging any fee.

Nadra has so far prepared over 6.093 million CNICs in the province. However, the response in tribal areas, especially South Waziristan, has not been encouraging due to the current situation in the agency.