KARACHI, Jan 23: The number of people desiring registration with the National Aliens Registration Authority (Nara) in Karachi has declined drastically over the past few months.

Sources in the authority told PPI, saying that Nara had set a daily target of 40 aliens, but currently hardly eight aliens visited its offices for registration.

Nara, besides its head office in Shireen Jinnah colony, has four sub-offices at Ibrahim Hyderi, Korangi, Fisheries and Karimabad in the city, but only 79,200 aliens, mostly Bengalis, had so far got themselves registered since the inception of the authority, the sources said, adding that these included 44,841 adults and the rest were minors.

They said the authority had also registered 8,000 Afghan refugees, but their registration was stopped after it got instructions from the Federal Interior Ministry during 2002-03 that the Afghan refugees needed no registration as they were being repatriated.

No formal survey had been carried out to ascertain the number of aliens in the city, however, a report prepared by former Sindh IG Afzal Shigree states that the number of Bengalis settled in Karachi was 1164,793, while that of Afghan refugees was said to be 83,863.

The Nara sources said that the decline in registration of Bengalis began after the issue was raised in the Sindh assembly a few months back. Moreover, the Interior Ministry had also started processing the cases of Bengalis for citizenship, while the Nadra too was issuing CNICs to these people, they added. -PPI