Sohail Jameel has been married for over a decade now and has three children who are now of school-going age. But on the rolls of the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra), Mr Jameel is still a single man. The discrepancy came to light when he visited the Nadra office in Rawalpindi’s commercial market, on a routine visit to obtain his children’s ‘Form Bs’.

His wife had renewed her computerised national identity card in 2004, two years after the couple married, to reflect her new marital status. Mr Jameel figured that if one member of the couple updated their information, the other’s would be updated automatically.

However, their confidence in Nadra’s database proved to be their undoing. During his visit to the Nadra centre, he was told that he could not obtain the children’s documents because, according to their records, he was not married and therefore could not be the father.

“I showed them the birth certificates of my children and asked him to issue their ‘Form Bs’, but just as the data entry process was about to begin, I was told the Form B could not be issued because I was not married.”

The official insisted that Mr Jameel’s marital status was not updated because he obtained his CNIC before he got married, adding that he could would not be changed as married which was unmarried at that time because he made CNIC before his marriage.

“Since I needed my children’s documents to get them admitted to school, I had no choice and applied for a CNIC on urgent basis,” he said.

Mr Jameel complained that it had become routine for government departments to create bureaucratic hurdles for citizens instead of facilitating them.

“I suggest Nadra should change the marital status of married persons within their data and not require new CNICs, it will make things much easier.”

Dawn’s ‘Eye-Witness Account’ segment features accounts of individuals who have experienced adversity or have been affected by a miscarriage of justice. All accounts are verified as far as possible by Dawn’s editorial team. Readers are encouraged to send in accounts of similar incidents that may have befallen them, so that attention can be called to such problems and they can be addressed with due debate in the public eye. Readers can send their accounts to re.isb@dawn.com

Published in Dawn February 25th , 2015

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