RECENTLY, in the wake of Mansour Akhtar’s killing in a drone attack in Balochistan, the government decided to re-verify CNICs because the Afghan Taliban leader was using a Pakistani passport.

Instead of taking strong action against Nadra officials involved in preparing fake CNICs and passports, the decision to re-verify CNICs of all citizens is illogical as Nadra issues computerised identity cards after demanding all supporting documents.

In principle, officials involved in issuing bogus CNICs and passport to the Taliban leader should have been thoroughly investigated.

What was the ministry concerned doing when such crimes were being committed? Why does the public have to face inconvenience because of someone else’s malpractices? Is this not the incompetence of the federal interior minister because Nadra works under his ministry?

To cover his inefficiency and bail out those who committed the crime, the minister has ordered re-verification of CNICs of all citizens.

The re-verification is being done through a text message. Those who are not mobile phone users will face the trauma of visiting Nadra offices and standing in long queues.

Had timely action been taken against the black sheep in Nadra, the public would not have been facing such issues.

Nazeer Ahmed Arijo

Larkana

(2)

REFERENCE M. Abid Hafeez’s letter (July 24) about the Computerised National Identity Cards. It appears he pressed the wrong digit. The message received in Urdu from Nadra is reproduced below: “Aap ke khandan ke mundarja zel afraad nadra ke paas registered hain. Agar in afraad mein koee ajnabi hai to (1) likh kar jawab dein aur hamara numainda aap se rabta kare ga. Basurat deegar, (2) likh kar jawab dein.”

I pressed 2, and here is the message I received from Nadra in English: “Thank you... NADRA Re-verification Service.”

Zahid Islam

Karachi

Published in Dawn, July 30th, 2016