KHYBER: With the closure of Nadra facility at Torkham, federal government has initiated Individual Voluntary Arrangement System (Ivas) to check parallel immigration systems other than passports.

Official sources told this scribe that Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) was assigned the responsibility to operate Ivas, initially with installation of three booths. The number booths could be increased owing to increase in the inflow of Afghans with passing of time, they added.

They said that the new system would help in channelising the irregular and parallel immigration process while movement of the Afghans would be closely monitored.

Officials of FIA posted at Torkham said that Afghan patients without visa but in critical condition would be ‘managed’ by Ivas along with one attendant. The patients were earlier exempted from visa on the request of Afghan Taliban authorities in the recent past.

Three booths installed to closely monitor movement of Afghans

“This is an intelligence-based programme run by FIA. It will entertain Afghan patients and an attendant upon their arrival and later at the time of their exit from Pakistan,” they said.

Similarly, Afghan nationals in possession of Proof of Registration (POR) and Afghan Citizen Card (ACC), who wanted to exit Pakistan via Torkham border, would also be allowed to go back under the new system, they said.

Officials said that the documents of those Afghans, who had entered Pakistan via Speen Boldak with an Afghan identity card and wanted to leave via Torkham border, would be cancelled under Ivas.

Local labourers and daily wagers, however, have expressed resentment over the new immigration system, saying it would affect nearly 8,000 families relying on manual jobs at Torkham border.

Farman Shinwari, a spokesman for the affected labourers, told Dawn that their occupation was already hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic and Ivas would further increase their financial woes. He feared Ivas would deprive them of their only source of income.

Meanwhile, 11 local data entry operators (DEOs) working at the Nadra centre at Torkhum have demanded of the government to release their nine-month salaries.

They said that with the closure of Nadra facility, all of them lost their jobs and their nine-month salaries were also not paid to them.

The Nadra centre at Torkham was responsible for online verification of both the Afghan and Pakistani nationals while also issuing temporary tokens to the local labourers and daily wagers for their cross-border movement. Nadra had in September last year suspended the online verification facility.

Published in Dawn, March 15th, 2022