ISLAMABAD: National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) Chairman Usman Mubeen said on Thursday that 80,000 ‘intruders’ were discovered during the CNIC re-verification process.

Mr Mubeen told the Senate Functional Committee on Problems of Less Developed Areas that most of these intruders are “aliens or foreigners”.

The committee met for a briefing on blocked CNICs, particularly in the Federally Administered Tribal areas and underdeveloped areas in all the provinces. Mr Mubeen told committee members Nadra had formally launched a campaign to reverify registered families in order to identify illegally registered members of families.

While they were being briefed by Nadra Director Operations Brig Nisar Munir, the committee learnt that over 180,000 CNICs belonging to individuals from underdeveloped areas, included Fata, had been blocked in the last year.

Communities reported 15,752 aliens whose identity cards were blocked

According to Mr Munir, the blocked cards belonged mostly to aliens with families. While giving details on the National Re-verification Programme, which began in May last year after directions from Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, he said 15,752 aliens whose identity cards were blocked were reported by communities, while another 3,640 non-nationals voluntarily surrendered their CNICs.

The committee was also informed that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had the highest number of blocked CNICs at 41,554, while 40,000 cards were blocked in Sindh, more than 38,000 were blocked in Punjab, 24,503 were blocked in Balochistan and some 6,149 cards were blocked in Islamabad.

Mr Munir said that, according to a notification from the interior ministry, blocked CNICs could only be cleared if an applicant provided one or more of the following documents: local/domicile certificate verified by the issuing authority, pedigree issued and verified by the revenue department, a government employment certificate or any other document issued by the government.

He said Nadra has divided digital impounded CNICs into two categories; the normal or routine cases have been temporarily cleared but CNICs in the “complex cases” category remain digitally impounded.

“The complex cases were forwarded to Nadra by security agencies. These cases will be decided by district-level committees,” Mr Munir said.

The committee was informed that in February, Deputy National Assembly Speaker Murtaza Javed Abbasi directed Nadra to take concrete measures to dispose of blocked CNIC cases quickly. He had argued that individuals whose cards were blocked were facing difficulties, and directed the Nadra chairman to devise a comprehensive strategy for unblocking CNICs whose holders had provided evidence of being Pakistani nationals.

Mr Munir said the government constituted a committee of over 18 parliamentarians to devise a mechanism to clear CNICs of Pakistani nationals whose cards were blocked over doubts that they were non-nationals. He said: “On the recommendations of the parliamentary committee, Nadra has issued detailed instructions to all regional head offices.”

Published in Dawn, June 9th, 2017