PESHAWAR, Sept 22: The National Database Registration Authority (Nadra) has detected 24,798 suspected national identity cards in NWFP and the tribal areas, officials said.

Sources in the Nadra regional office told Dawn that the authority was probing the vague NIC in collaboration with the state agencies.

FIRs had been registered against 1,174 accused including 709 applicants, 187 government employees and 465 attestors who allegedly facilitated aliens to obtain the NICs.

The Nadra had detected 7,390 tempered NICs in Peshawar district, 1,536 in Mardan district, 1,115 in Swat, 1,268 in Charsadda and 228 in Dera Ismail Khan.

The state agencies traced out 708 Afghan nationals who submitted their forms to obtain computerised NICs.

The registration authority detected 24,798 tempered NICs of which 11,338 were under investigation, 13,460 had been declared suspected, whereas 150 NICs were untraceable.

Concerned officials said that under the registration law a person found with fake NIC would be sentenced to one-year rigorous imprisonment and Rs100,000 fine, while the officials who attested the NIC forms would face dismissal.

They said that the presence of about two million Afghan refugees in the province and the tribal areas had made their job difficult and the Nadra had already asked the UN refugee agency to provide lists of registered refugees.