ISLAMABAD, July 27: A controversy relating to the so-called Olympic visa scam is getting complicated with the Pakistani and UK authorities making claims and counter-claims and not accepting each other’s point of view.

The British government rejected on Friday Pakistan’s claim that no fraud had taken place and issued a report which said Mohammad Ali Asad, the man whose identity card was used in the scam, had not travelled to Pakistan.

But Nadra officials stuck to their claim that the man had travelled to Pakistan and got his computerised national identity card (CNIC), originally issued in 2002, renewed.

“We have complete record with footage of Mohammad Ali Asad visiting the Nadra office. How can the British authorities clam that he did not travel to Pakistan,” a senior Nadra official told Dawn.

He said the organisation would soon sue the British tabloid, The Sun, for publishing a false and baseless story and damaging reputation of Nadra and the country.

Several attempts were made on Friday to contact Prime Minister’s Adviser on Interior Affairs Rehman Malik and Nadra Chairman Tariq Malik, but there was no response from their phones.

In its meeting on Thursday, the federal cabinet rejected the claims made by the tabloid that a gang was active in sending people to the UK on fake or forged documents for the 2012 Olympics in London.

The tabloid claimed that during its sting operation a man who used the ID of one Mohammad Ali Asad had travelled to the UK as a member of Pakistan’s Olympic squad.

On Friday, the British High Commission released its report on the visa scam and claimed that the Sun’s agent Ali Asad had successfully obtained a fake passport in Pakistan to sneak into Britain along with Pakistan’s Olympic delegation.

It said that Asad had come to Pakistan on a British passport and managed to get a fake CNIC and a machine-readable Pakistani passport on the specifics of “Mohammad Ali Asad”.

According to the high commission’s record, Ali Asad’s date of birth is Dec 8, 1980, while that of Mohammad Ali Asad’s is Nov 8, 1970.

Similarly, Ali Asad is a resident of Sahiwal and Mohammad Ali Asad lives in Lahore.

The report also claimed that the pictures made available by the British High Commission included one of Ali Asad and two of Mohammad Ali Asad.

On Thursday, the British High Commissioner to Pakistan Adam Thomson said his government was satisfied with Pakistan’s visa and passport issuance mechanisms.

He said no visa and passport system in the world was perfect. “There may be occasional slippages.” Mr Thomson praised the Nadra system, but said mistakes could be made.

The Sun had claimed to have broken into a crime ring which was issuing fake or forged passports and visas, giving potential terrorists a chance to sneak into London Olympics 2012.

Nadra’s own investigation suggested that the same reporter of the tabloid had visited Pakistan and this had been confirmed while matching his credentials with his family tree in the database.

Nadra chairman had told Dawn that the CNIC used in the sting operation by the British tabloid was originally issued in 2000 in the name of Mohammad Ali Asad and at that time Nadra had no biometric system which captured fingerprints and even retina of an applicant.

“More than 350 attempts to get a fake or duplicate CNIC are foiled daily since Nadra introduced the biometric system in 2005-06,” he said, adding that such a large number of cases a day would not have been detected if the system was flawed and vulnerable to forgery.