ISLAMABAD: Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain’s application for a Pakistani passport became a mystery after acting Director General Immigration and Passports Mohammad Safdar told the Senate’s Standing Committee on Interior on Monday that no such request had been received by his department.

Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam had told journalists last month that Altaf Hussain’s application for passport had been sent to the interior ministry. After receiving a response from the interior ministry, she said, the request would be forwarded to the Pakistan High Commission in Britain.

On April 4, the MQM chief had announced that he had applied for a passport and a national identity card and said he could come to Pakistan any time.

The interior ministry had explained that Mr Hussain could apply for a passport only after obtaining a national identity card for overseas Pakistanis.

Shahi Syed of the ANP raised the issue at the Senate committee’s meeting and the acting DG immigration and passports told the committee that no application had been submitted by Mr Hussain.

Shahi Syed asked retired Colonel Tahir Hussain Mashhadi of the MQM in a lighter vein would Altaf Hussain come to Pakistan if he got a passport.

The reply was whether he came or not, it was his right to get a passport. “You will be at the losing end if he comes to the country, as the entire nation will follow him,” Mr Mashhadi told Shahi Syed.

The acting DG informed the committee that 902 aliens, who managed to obtain Pakistani passports over the past five years, had been identified. He said the Peshawar High Cour had declared 7,726 individuals as non-nationals and 613 of them possessed machine readable passports.

He said these individuals had been blacklisted and passports issued to them had been made inactive in the database and Nadra had also been informed for cancellation of their CNICs.

He said the machine readable passport could be processed only when the CNIC of a person was active and Nadra online system verified it.

He said passport offices had been directed to exercise extra vigilance while interviewing the applicants and refer the suspicious cases to the security agencies for verification of their national status before issuing passports to them.

Committee’s Chairman Talha Mehmood said only a small fraction of passports issued to aliens had been blocked. About two million aliens possessed CNICs and 70 per cent of them had been issued passports, he added.

Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid told the committee that blue passports were issued in the past to girlfriends, friends and property dealers and offices had been set up unnecessarily on political grounds.

The minister advised government servants to refuse to obey illegal orders. “If they do so, they will be supported by vibrant parliamentary committees, free media and independent judiciary,” he said.

The passport department officials informed the meeting that there was a shortage of staff and about 500 recruitments were needed to be made for smooth functioning.

Talha Mehmood disclosed that two alien women had got travel documents on the recommendation of a minister. When Pervaiz Rasheed asked him to expose the person, Mr Mehmood said though he was in possession of documentary evidence, he would not do so as the minister might not be knowing that he was being used.