ISLAMABAD, March 14: The federal government has stopped dispatching around 37,000 national identity cards (NICs) to the residents of Azad Kashmir because of objections over their nationality status, official sources said here on Thursday.

As a result, around 3,338 identity cards already dispatched to the AJK residents would be withdrawn and issued afresh, Brig (retired) Saleem Ahmad Moin, Chairman of the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra), confirmed.

Mr Moin said it was some misunderstanding because of some old decision that has now been rectified when the AJK government pointed out the anomaly through a letter. “Today, the new NICs have been printed, the word refugee has been removed and the distributor would deliver the new NIC and get back the old one that contained the mistake,” he told Dawn.

He, however, explained that it would continue to be mentioned on their cards that they are residents of the State of Azad Jammu and Kashmir as has been the practice in the past. “It was a mistake and has been rectified,” said the Nadra chief.

The sources said an inquiry has also been ordered to ascertain as to how and under what circumstances the AJK people were issued NICs with refugee status notwithstanding the fact that they did not fall under that category.

In the recent months, citizens of Azad Kashmir and some of them now living in the four provinces were surprised to see that NICs dispatched to them by Nadra contained stamps representing them as refugees of Jammu and Kashmir state. “Nobody knows who took the decision to declare people in Azad Kashmir as refugees but, of course, this created heart-burning in that area,” said a senior official but clarified that the anomaly was in the making before the current chairman took over, though it came to light recently.