ISLAMABAD, Oct 24: As many as 29 persons – 22 foreigners and seven Nadra officials – were held for their alleged involvement in illegal Computerised National Identity Cards (CNIC) issuance incident.

“National Database Registration Authority (Nadra) vigilant cell held 22 foreigners and seven Nadra employees and handed them over to Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in Akhrotabad, Balochistan,” Nadra’s spokesman said here on Monday.

Narda vigilance cell received information that some foreigners mostly Afghan nationals were trying to get CNICs in connivance with Nadra employees in Akhrotabad.

“The vigilance cell conducted an operation together with the security agencies and nabbed 22 foreigners and seven Nadra employees who were helping them in getting CNICs illegally,’ the spokesman said.

The spokesman did not elaborate on the operation and did not share the names of the accused with the media.

A Nadra source said more than 200 attempts to issue illegal CNICs had been foiled by the authority across the country due to strong internal control system which detected such attempts.

“We are using technology tools to study the trends of over-blown attestations by some individuals and also keeping an eye on our own employees helping circumvent the process,” said Nadra’s Deputy Chairman Tariq Malik.

Nadra, he said, always followed a zero tolerance policy for corruption and was working extensively to weed out the corrupt elements within its ranks.

The authority had taken strict actions against its staff involved in illegal activities and most of them had been punished and terminated. “This was possible due to internal control systems that Nadra had implemented to eliminate corruption,” the official said. “Human intelligence was not enough so we are using technology to study behavioral trends of data and then using the same to nab the culprits,” said Mr Malik.

“It is a continuous war and we will make sure that we are ahead of these culprits”, he added.

The authority is vigilant to take notice of suspicious attempts to obtain CNICs using fake documents and instantly investigate such cases to hand over correct information to police and FIA for further investigation.