ISLAMABAD, Jan 11: The Election Commission of Pakistan has received a few complaints from Karachi against some unknown people posing themselves as ECP officials and taking away original computerised national identity cards (CNICs) of voters in the name of verification.

A senior ECP official told this correspondent that telephonic complaints had been received from some voters in Karachi that they had been deprived of their CNICs by people introducing themselves as staff of the commission.

The ECP swung into action and issued a statement warning voters against handing over their original CNICs to verification officials in any case, but urged them to cooperate with officials who would go house-to-house during the verification campaign.

The ECP advised the people to show their CNICs to officials to prove their identity and for verification of their particulars in the voters’ list. It, however, made it clear that no verifying official was authorised to collect the CNIC of any person.

The official said the statement was meant to alert the people against any attempt to subvert the verification exercise.

“At the moment we are unable to judge the genuineness of the complaints received through anonymous calls, but at the same time we cannot ignore them,” he said.

He said while it would be futile to hold an inquiry against unknown impersonators the best way to foil any such possible plot was to create awareness about it.

The complaints have been received a day after the house numbering exercise started in Karachi division as part of the process for re-verification of voters. The official said the door-to-door verification would be taken up on Jan 15 after completion of house listing.